180 Discharged due to their homosexuality get rest of severance pay

Deal Restores Severance Pay for Discharged Gays
Jan 08, 2013
Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Dozens of gay and lesbian former military service members who were discharged due to their homosexuality will receive the rest of their severance pay under a settlement approved Monday by a federal court.

The American Civil Liberties Union said the $2.4 million settlement covers more than 180 veterans who received only half of their separation pay under a policy that went into effect in 1991, two years before "don't ask, don't tell" became law.

Laura Schauer Ives, the managing attorney for the ACLU of New Mexico, called the settlement a "long-delayed justice."

"There was absolutely no need to subject these service members to a double dose of discrimination by removing them from the armed forces in the first place, and then denying them this small benefit to ease the transition to civilian life," she said.

A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, said the Defense Department is aware of the settlement and "will, of course, continue to follow the law, as well as the terms of the agreement."

The case was filed in 2010 by the ACLU on behalf of former Air Force Staff Sgt. Richard Collins of Clovis, N.M. He was honorably discharged in 2006 after two civilians who worked with him at Cannon Air Force Base reported they saw him kiss his boyfriend in a car about 10 miles from the base.

The decorated sergeant was off-duty and not in uniform at the time.
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