Biden pardons veterans convicted under military ban on gay sex | BBC News

US President Joe Biden has pardoned thousands of veterans who were convicted of crimes under a military law that banned gay sex for more than 60 years.

The veterans were convicted under a provision of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which criminalised sodomy from 1951 to 2013.

The US Congress had repealed the portion of the code that outlawed consensual sodomy in 2013.

This military provision is separate from the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” President Bill Clinton-era policy, which banned openly gay and lesbian Americans from serving in the military.

The BBC’s Caitríona Perry spoke with Steve Marose, a former US Air Force officer who was charged with three counts of consensual sodomy in the late 1980s. Marose served two years in prison for those charges.

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