AN AMERICAN MARINE has won a relatively landmark case in a military court, which ruled that it was permissible for him to wear some parts of his Marine uniform in a homosexual porn movie.
Sergeant Matthew Simmons – who appears on film under the name Christian Jade – had worn his uniform in sequences filmed for adult websites, and had disclosed in behind-the-scenes footage that they were genuine parts of his uniform as a serving Marine.
A military court charged him with misusing his uniform, and Simmons pleaded guilty – but a military court of criminal appeals has now ruled that Simmons should be resentenced for his ‘crime’.
The court’s ruling noted that while it was a crime to misuse the uniform, it could not decree with certainty that the terms ‘uniform’ and ‘uniform items’ were interchangeable.
The court also found that Simmons had never claimed to be appearing in the pornography in his capacity as an active serviceman, and that he had stripped his dress blue coat of any insignia that would have identified his unit.
The maximum punishment to which he can now be sentenced is a four-month confinement, or a forfeiture of two-thirds of his salary for four months.
Legal affairs blogger Michael Doyle described the outcome as a “very significant victory” for Simmons, but noted that it served as a reminder to Marines not to wear their full uniform if appearing in pornography.
The ruling comes only two weeks after the military officially repealed the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy, which had forbidden openly gay people from service.
