MINNEAPOLIS — Thom Bieniek remembers when he had to go by the name “Marissa” just to communicate with his partner, Tyler Bieniek, during Tyler’s combat deployment in Afghanistan in 2009.

Now that burden is gone: Last fall, for the first time, he even got the chance to attach a promotion pin on Tyler’s National Guard uniform — a privilege that came because they are married.

Last summer, Jan Knieff and Cathy Hare faced the dread that shadows a diagnosis of serious illness. But the pair, together 31 years, were able at last to wed days before Knieff’s hospital admission, ensuring that Hare could visit Knieff in the hospital and with full spousal rights.

Across Minnesota, same-sex marriage is subtly but permanently altering the social fabric. The political rancor that gripped the state for more than two years before legislators took the historic step that legalized such unions last summer has given way to a new and still-forming landscape. Same-sex couples are settling swiftly into married life, and others still uneasy with the momentous change are struggling to adjust to it.

At least 2,934 same-sex couples have wed across Minnesota. Hennepin County clerks found that about one in every four couples seeking a marriage license in the past six months was gay or lesbian. In Clay County, on the North Dakota border, 52 of the 309 marriage licenses were for same-sex couples.

In a testament to how much has changed, in just the past couple of months a group founded to raise awareness about the 515 legal protections for married couples that were denied to same-sex ones announced that it is closing up shop, its mission accomplished.

Ann Kaner-Roth, the former head of the group Project 515, recalls her children sitting on the steps of the State Capitol the day Gov. Mark Dayton signed the same-sex marriage bill. Her oldest daughter, she said, will remember the campaigns and intense conversations during those months leading up to legalization. Her youngest two will not.

“All they will ever know is a state where everyone is free to marry the person they love, and families that are protected by our state,” she said. “That new reality is a gift for all of our families and children, and is part of the legacy that all of us now leave behind.”

SAN FRANCISCO — The United States should join the dozen other nations that allow transgender people to serve in the armed forces, a commission led by a former U.S. surgeon general said in a report released Thursday that concludes there is no medical reason for the decades-old ban and calls on President Barack Obama to lift it.

The five-member panel, convened by a think tank at San Francisco State University, said Department of Defense regulations designed to keep transgender people out of the military are based on outdated beliefs that require thousands of current service members either to leave the service or to forego the medical procedures and other changes that could align their bodies and gender identities.

"We determined not only that there is no compelling medical reason for the ban, but also that the ban itself is an expensive, damaging and unfair barrier to health care access for the approximately 15,450 transgender personnel who serve currently in the active, Guard and reserve components," said the commission led by Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who served as surgeon general during Bill Clinton's first term as president, and Rear Adm. Alan Steinman, a former chief health and safety director for the Coast Guard.

The White House on Thursday referred questions to the Department of Defense.

"At this time there are no plans to change the department's policy and regulations which do not allow transgender individuals to serve in the U.S. military," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen, a Defense Department spokesman.

The report says that although scholars have yet to find government documents explaining the basis for the ban, which has existed in medical fitness standards and conduct codes since the 1960s, it appears rooted in part in the psychiatric establishment's long-held consensus, since revised, that people who identity with a gender different from the one assigned at birth suffer from a mental disorder.

The ban also was apparently based on the assumption that providing hormone treatment and sex reassignment surgeries would be too difficult, disruptive and expensive. But the commission rejected those notions as inconsistent with modern medical practice and the scope of health care services routinely provided to non-transgender military personnel.

"I hope their takeaway will be we should evaluate every one of our people on the basis of their ability and what they can do, and if they have a condition we can treat we would treat it like we would treat anyone else," Elders said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper hailed the end of Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan Wednesday as a “significant milestone in the fight against global terror.”

After 12 years, the loss of 162 lives and endless debate at home, the military mission formally ended with a ceremony in Kabul. Canadian and international dignitaries looked on as the army took down the Canadian flag at NATO headquarters, still under heavy guard in the war-ravaged country.

In a statement, Harper praised the work of the more than 40,000 Canadian Forces members who “have fought to defeat the threat of terrorism, and to ensure the freedom of others to build a stronger, safer world. In the course of this fight, many have paid the ultimate price.

“Their courage and dedication has brought much pride to our country. I look forward to personally welcoming home the last contingent of Canada’s brave men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces when they return home on the final flight.”
The withdrawal of the last 100 Canadian soldiers, who stayed behind to train Afghan National Security Forces, will be completed over the next few days. The last troops will arrive home on March 18.

“Your strength has protected the weak; your bravery has brought hope to hopeless; and the helping hand you have extended to the Afghan people has given them faith that a better future is within their grasp," Deborah Lyons, the Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan, told the soldiers in Kabul Wednesday.
In a statement, Liberal defence critic Joyce Murray said “all Canadians join in extending our appreciation and thanks” to those who served in Afghanistan.