Major news from the White House today President Biden announced pardons for former

U.S. service personnel who were convicted under a military law repealed in 2013 that banned

gay sex. The move today would potentially cover thousands of veterans who were

forced out of the military because of their sexual orientation.

Lindsey Church is executive director of minority veterans of America and joins us now from the White House

where they are attending an event. Thanks for being with us. Thank you so much

for having me. Help us understand the details of this pardon, how it works and

how it would affect veterans who were previously

criminalized under the law. So today the announcement was made that

President Biden would use his clemency authority to pardon service members who received a

discharge under what's called Article 125 which criminalizes base X as you

mentioned. So folks that were kicked out and sent to court marshal based off of autonomy laws are now have the opportunity

to apply to have that have to have the pardon in that court marshal and to eventually have

their discharges upgraded.

As you mentioned, this is expected that it could be up to a few thousand service members that were

impacted by this.

The process would not be automatic.

The service member would still have to apply for the program under the pardon and they would then

go through the discharge upgrade process but they would be entitled to as long

as they meet the certain requirements to be able to have their discharges upgraded to

honorable and which would allow them to be entitled to benefits that they have otherwise

been denied for the last however long. Sodomy laws were in place between

...