Under pressure, Navy drops same-sex marriage plan

The U.S. Navy abruptly reversed its position yesterday, announcing that it was suspending a plan that would have allowed Navy chaplains to perform same-sex marriages on military bases.

Rear Admiral M.L. Tidd, the Navy's top chaplain, sent a note invalidating his memo from last month authorizing the marriages. "My memorandum of 13 April 2011 is hereby suspended until further notice pending additional legal and policy review and inter-Departmental coordination," he wrote.

More than 60 Republicans wrote to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus opposing the Navy's plan. "Offering up federal facilities and federal employees for same-sex marriages violates DOMA, which is still the law of the land and binds our military, including chaplains," it read, referring to the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act, which bars the recognition of same-sex marriage. The Obama administration has deemed parts of that law unconstitutional, and is no longer defending it against court challenges.

The same-sex marriage ceremonies would have been for servicemen or women after the military fully implemented the repeal of "Don't ask, don't tell." Under the since-revoked policy, only naval chaplains who did not object to same-sex marriage would have officiated at them.

(Mabus: Rogello Solis/AP)