An American Lion

This is a great case for the United States Supreme Court

I can proudly point to a lifetime of success and excitement because I have never, ever been to South Dakota.

Friends tell me the place is a canker sore on the ass end of the indecent part of the country. I have been to Minnesota, of course. Who hasn’t been to Minnesota? They have things to do there. South Dakota? Please. The only thing to do in South Dakota is to stare desperately at the end of your grasp on sanity as it seeps out the end of what was your beautiful soul after you’ve been driven batshit crazy by the boredom.

Another wonderful thing about never having been there is when you come across a story like this when you’re looking for news about how tough it is to find qualified mechanics and technical people in the military:

Jene Newsome played by the rules as an Air Force sergeant: She never told anyone in the military she was a lesbian.

The 28-year-old’s honorable discharge under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy came only after police officers in Rapid City, S.D., saw an Iowa marriage certificate in her home and told the nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base.

Newsome and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint against the western South Dakota police department, claiming the officers violated her privacy when they informed the military about her sexual orientation. The case also highlights concerns over the ability of third parties to “out” service members, especially as the Pentagon has started reviewing the 1993 “don’t ask, don’t tell” law.

Newsome says in the article that she respected and lived by the DADT regulations. That right there should tell you one thing: this person respects the military and isn’t looking for attention because her feelings are hurt or because she wants attention and a book deal and a chance to meet people who relish the chance to bash the military. From what I gather here, we have a genuine case of someone respecting good order and discipline. This isn’t the all-too-familiar story of a fresh young recruit plastered with glitter and goo who got caught having same-sex partners in the middle of an Ecstasy-fueled hump-fest at a dance club two weeks away from graduating from airborne school. This was a career-oriented professional who has been trained and educated to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and all of that was flushed down the toilet because Johnny Law felt like it.

Who is this young lady?

The Rapid City Police Department says Newsome, an aircraft armament system craftsman who spent nine years in the Air Force, was not cooperative when they showed up at her home in November with an arrest warrant for her partner, who was wanted on theft charges in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Newsome was at work at the base at the time and refused to immediately come home and assist the officers in finding her partner, whom she married in Iowa — where gay marriage is legal — in October.

Police officers, who said they spotted the marriage license on the kitchen table through a window of Newsome’s home, alerted the base, police Chief Steve Allender said in a statement sent to the AP. The license was relevant to the investigation because it showed both the relationship and residency of the two women, he said.

“It’s an emotional issue and it’s unfortunate that Newsome lost her job, but I disagree with the notion that our department might be expected to ignore the license, or not document the license, or withhold it from the Air Force once we did know about it,” Allender said Saturday. “It was a part of the case, part of the report and the Air Force was privileged to the information.”

Let’s just stop and puncture Johnny Law’s little statement with this one salient fact: Newsome was at work at the base at the time. This is a woman in the military who straps missiles and armaments onto an aircraft and ensures that these systems operate properly. She is a non-commissioned officer, and that means that she probably supervises, trains, and inspects the work of the airmen who work for her. She’s not a pencil pusher or a chair wrangler or a dog walker. She helps the pilots with the stuff that goes boom, sir. What, is she supposed to stop everything and come running when Johnny Law peeks through her windows?

Police officers, who said they spotted the marriage license on the kitchen table through a window of Newsome’s home, alerted the base, police Chief Steve Allender said in a statement sent to the AP. The license was relevant to the investigation because it showed both the relationship and residency of the two women, he said.

I’m highlighting that again because of how weird it reads to me. So what if her partner has a warrant for theft? A warrant is one thing; that’s between Johnny Law and that particular individual. It’s not for a violent crime and it’s a procedural thing. It’s not life or death, and it’s a basic and very understandable invasion of privacy to pursue said warrant to the point where Johnny Law is looking in a window and reading off the marriage license of two people legally married in Iowa. Hey, here’s an idea—let’s give the Johnny Laws in Rapid City a dozen or so drone aircraft so they can scour the city, looking sideways into windows onto kitchen tables, so that they can spot people who fail to pay their parking tickets.

Whose business is that, Johnny Law? Yes, you have the right home. You have a warrant in hand. You’re looking in the windows. Do you have the person you’re looking for? No? Does one spouse have to bend over backwards, leave the flight line, and hurry home so you can throw the other spouse in jail over some theft charges that are pending in another state? No.

Then, I guess, you’re done here, Johnny Law.

I hope this case goes all the way to the top, and I hope they take the wind out of little Johnny Law’s sails there in Rapid City. I shall laugh my fanny off when this young lady walks away with a big check and an appropriate apology.