Marine Corps instructs spouses club to admit same-sex spouses

Responding to an ongoing controversy at Fort Bragg, the Marine Corps today issued a directive that on-base "spouses clubs" must admit the husbands and wives of gay service members.

The Marine Corps commandant's Staff Judge Advocate, in an e-mail to legal offices throughout the corps, said the Fort Bragg events had "caused quite a stir" and cautioned, "We do not want a story like this developing in our backyard." The memo noted that spouses clubs and various other private institutions are allowed to operate on bases only if they adhere to a non-discrimination policy encompassing race, religion, gender, age, disability and national origin.

The email goes on to say "We would interpret a spouses club's decision to exclude a same-sex spouse as sexual discrimination because the exclusion was based upon the spouse's sex." (Emphasis mine).

The memo notes ongoing controversy surrounding a spouses club at the Army's Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Last month, Ashley Broadway was refused membership to the spouses club because she is ineligible to receive a military ID card under Pentagon regulations that refuse to recognize her marriage to another woman, Lt. Col. Heather Mack.

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