 Welcome to a special episode of Marriage News Watch. I'm talking to Steve Hill and Joshua Snyder. You may recognize Steve as a soldier who bravely asked a question about Don't Ask Don't Tell during the Republican debates. And so I'm talking now about what that process was like and how it's affected them. So thank you so much for joining us, Steve and Josh. Tell me just a little bit, what was it like to record that question? Whose idea was it and how did it happen? Basically, I saw some advertisements on the AFN network over there that said that you could submit a question. And I talked with Josh about it. And then I submitted it with anonymity at first because I just showed my mouth and took off my rank and stuff. And I submitted it and it raised up a lot of controversy. And then they wrote me back and said, we really like the question, but we need you to resubmit because I submitted it early. And everybody submits early, but they wanted to seem live. So they said that can you re-record it and not say in eight days when the repeal goes through, say, you know, the repeal went through and then asked your question. And they asked me if I could show my face. And I really didn't want to at first. And I talked to Josh quite a bit about it. And we just thought it was more important that the question got out there. I guess I just didn't really realize it was coming out to everybody by doing it. But I did, but I didn't really think about it at the time. I mean, that must have been quite a shock going from being completely secretive about your relationship to coming out in front of the entire country. The question got asked. Josh was ecstatically happy that the question got there because we really thought that it needed to be asked. So we were happy about that. But then the next emotion was, you know, the booing happened. And immediately I thought, am I in trouble? Did I do something wrong? Because, you know, I just got booed on national TV. I'm a I'm a serviceman. I'm a soldier. So that was the next thought. And then, of course, you know, Rick Santorum's answer was the next string of emotions. And then after all that was done, I thought, oh my God, I just came out to six billion people. So yeah, it was a lot of thought for a lot of emotions. What was it that ultimately changed your mind? Why did you decide to go ahead and do it? Over the years, you know, I mean, I've been in the military for 20 years. And over the years, you know, I've gone through a lot of things in my life that have kind of led up to me wanting to ask that question. I mean, I've had to run through my house and hide pictures of my own house, you know, when soldiers and friends would come over, and I've had to ask people to leave my house. You know, I've had to make my roommates lie. I've had to do a lot of stuff. And you know, the resentment of that kind of stuff, and then the resentment of knowing that for 20 years I fought for my country and I fought for everybody's rights except my own. I mean, that's basically what it is. And I have to lie to do that, you know, and it just isn't right. Then the question, when the debate happened, I assume you were both watching wherever you were, but were you with people? What happened at that moment when you saw it? Well, from my standpoint, I was in Iraq, it was 4 a.m. in the morning, and so I woke up to an alarm and watched it live because we have a pretty good TV over there. So I watched it from my room and I skyped with Josh in between. And we weren't certain that they were going to really ask it. We knew that they said that they might. And so, you know, we watched the first hour of it, and nothing, and then they said, social issues are coming next. And I think Josh was with people watching it, weren't you? No, I was, no, actually, there was nobody between. Our friends all knew about it. We kind of forewarned them because we were getting hints that they were pretty sure they were going to show the question, but they weren't willing to tell us for sure that they were going to do it. So I was actually kind of home alone because I thought it'd be silly. I mean, it's not really all that fun to watch a debate, let alone I don't think we'd feel very comfortable watching a Republican debate. So it wouldn't have been that great of a party, especially if he didn't end up being on TV. And so literally it was kind of just me at home alone, which is probably why I ended up missing the booing kind of at first. But yeah, it was us just basically talking on commercial breaks via Skype because we didn't want to mess up his band with in order to watch it live. And so you're basically together on and off throughout the debate. What did you say to each other in the next commercial break? Well, they said, you know, the question was going to be asked. And then, you know, then it came back up and she basically said, this next question is controversial. The hair on the back of my neck just stood up because I knew it was me. And she said it comes from a soldier serving in Iraq. And then, you know, my name appears, brought his day on the screen. So, you know, I mean, just the reality just slowly set in. And then I called Josh and I'm like, did you see it? And, you know, even then it was like, you were just like there was so much going on in your brain that you just can't, you couldn't even process everything that was going on. But, you know, then shortly after we talked, it was like, you know, the thought process was I hope I didn't do anything wrong because I just got booed. Rick Santorum's answer really, really was bad. I mean, he basically said it was a special privilege for me to serve in the military and talked about sex. And, you know, none of this stuff, that wasn't my question. I never asked anything about conduct. I'm not asking to do any different conduct than I've done the 20 years that I've been in. The only difference with the 20th of September is I went to work and I didn't have to worry that I was going to get kicked out. That's it. I didn't have to worry that I'd lose my job if somebody read an email or saw a picture of me on a vacation for the first time in my life in 20 years that I've hit. So, it was very offensive, you know, the special privilege answer that he gave. But, I mean, none of that really set in too much. And then I called Josh and we were, you know, talking about the booing and talking about what happened and the answer a little bit. And then the internet just lit up. And then I kept thinking in my brain, well, maybe people didn't see it. You know, maybe I'm not going to have this much repercussion because, you know, people over here will probably sleep and it's done. And if they, you know, maybe one or two people might have caught the debate and not notice my question or whatever. And then, you know, I mean, the rest of history saw it light up and it was on every news show and everything. And so, I mean, over the next week or so, it was just like surreal that it just never stopped. I mean, I went over to the chow hall in Iraq and I'm sitting with 3,000 people who I'm over there at war with and not one of them knew I was gay. And we probably have 20 monitors that show the news while you eat. And on all those monitors, I come up and I'm like, in 2010, when I was deployed to Iraq and the, you know, and I basically come out and it happened to me like three times when I was showing the different newses. And so, and then once when I went to the gym, it was on at the gym. It's just like it was just bad. It was like, I was just out. You know, there was nothing that I could do as far as like not going back in or whatever. Well, it was pretty insane. What did, I mean, when that happened, like you're there and suddenly your face comes up. Do people react? What did people say to you about it? The first, after the debate, a couple of people, you know, kind of like, you knew that they were, they look at you and then they kind of like look away. Like they didn't know how to react. You know, just because it is weird. I mean, because I did, I lied to people for all these years. You know, I've been in the military for a long time. A lot of these people I've been friends with for a long time and I've been telling them, you know, that I'm married to a woman, you know, and I'm not, I'm married to a man. But, you know, I just changed. I told them real stories. I just never ever really identified the gender. And so I think that there was a lot of, you know, weirdness just because you feel a little bit betrayed when somebody's been lying to you for as long as I had been. But I had a friend that I've known for probably 10 years and she's a great friend and she's always been really great with me. And she always asked me a lot about my relationship. She would ask me, you know, how's your girlfriend? How's your wife? How's your, you know. And I mean, under Don't Ask, Don't Tell, she tormented me. She really did. She was like always on my case asking me stuff and why aren't you bringing somebody to family day and you know, what are you guys doing? And stuff like that. It was just really, really rough. And so after the debate, I knew I had to face her and I've been lying to her for 10 years. And so basically I talked to her and she was like, I love you and she hugged me and you know, that was all that she said basically. And then a week later, so we went to church and after church, she came out and she said, I've got to talk to you. I've been lying to you too about something. And I said, about what? And she said the same thing. And so here I've known her for 10 years and under Don't Ask, Don't Tell, she's like one of the worst torturers of me by asking me all these things. And she's another gay person that could have been an ally to make me feel better, you know, that haven't support. And under that crazy policy, we are actually like, like, you know, persecuting each other by asking our personal lives but then lying to each other about it. So, you know, honesty and integrity and courage are three army values that they tell us that we're supposed to use. And I think that Don't Ask, Don't Tell was counter indicative of all that stuff. That you can't be honest and have integrity if you're telling people to lie about who they are. I mean, that kind of stuff is ridiculous that we've had to live like this. Yeah, and for so long, you said you've been in the military for 20 years. Since 88 is when I joined in high school and in the military before prior to Don't Ask, Don't Tell, you know, I mean, people knew that there were gay people in the military but there wasn't really a law saying that we'll kick you out if we find these things. Give us a little bit of background on your relationship. How long have you guys been together? How did you meet? And what was it like being a military spouse, a secret military spouse? We just really kind of met through mutual friends. We both live here in Columbus and we have a lot of things in common. We're both kind of geeky, we play games and we like computers and there's just a lot of our personalities that are very similar. And so a lot of times our friends would talk about us to each other without us even knowing each other. And then of course at some point, your paths are gonna cross and we ended up kind of falling for each other. I would say that the deployment is probably what made us the strongest. It was difficult. We had to figure out how to manage a relationship. First of all, you have to decide whether you want to maintain a relationship. And it's really easy to tell somebody when they're in the army, oh, if you get deployed, I'll be here and we can do this. But when the reality hits, it's difficult. I can tell you after dealing with it for a year and being an army spouse, it's not easy. We've been on Skype before and the mortar's gone off and he's had to disconnect and we lost contact for a few hours. And it's really kind of weird to think, your phone in one hand and I've got Skype sitting up on the computer and I'm just hoping Skype rings versus the phone because God only knows. I mean, I'm the first to be contacted because we arranged it from the standpoint of the documentation that you submit with the army. But technically as a spouse, I wouldn't really even be recognized. It was basically kind of all set up by us. I've always been really proud of him. I can't believe what it's like to serve for that long and keep, I don't know, keep your life separated that way and do, I don't know, and do it with such honor. And I can't imagine what it would be like if somebody were to ask me about this ring. He probably wore it, but he had to lie about it. I don't even know what I would do because I love talking about it. It's kind of the, that has to be the benefit of it. I mean, it's the most important thing to talk about when somebody asks you the relationship that you have with somebody and how passionate you are about each other. I mean, we love each other and it's not a big deal but it's ridiculous to think that somebody could wear something like that and not be able to honestly speak about the person that they're in love with. So tell me a little bit about the circumstances of your wedding. How did you decide to do it? Whose idea was it? Why did you decide to do it in the place that you did? Well, the crazy part about it is that we were still under Don't Ask Don't Tell. We were still governed under that until September. And in December when I first got deployed, I'd read a little bit about the Don't Ask Don't Tell and it was getting voted on and everything. And then I guess it got shot down and came back up and it was just uncertain what, it just seemed like a fantasy at the time. Like, whoa, one day maybe they won't kick me out. But anyway, so they finally announced the date, September. And I knew the date when I came in with an RR. But I was just so excited and Josh and I had so much fun, like I still have the voicemail. I mean, I have all of my voicemails that he left me in Iraq and one of them after I left, he started crying and he was just telling me what a great two weeks had been when we were together. And it was just, it was so cool that we just had such a good time when we were together. So we just started thinking how important it was for us to get married. We wanted to get married as soon as we could. And we thought maybe we'll look into it or whatever. So. Yeah, so we kind of started poking around. And at this point, New York wasn't even technically, they were in the midst of basically trying to figure out if they were gonna have marriage equality. But Washington DC was one of the areas, obviously. It's not too far away, it's six hours drive. And we thought, well, this is technically where history is gonna be made. This is where Don't Ask, Don't Tell is basically being defeated. It's already been defeated. It's just kind of being implemented. And we figure in the grand scheme of things, this is where Dilma's gonna be defeated. So Washington DC just seemed like the right place. So we started poking around the Monday before he was gonna leave, which was on a Friday, early in the morning. And we contacted a bunch of different ministers and reverents to see who's able to do something on short notice. Well, after poking around, we met the one that married us, Tiffany. And we asked her if she could help us with any significant places. Well, what's interesting is Tiffany knew the phrase that was on Leonard Matlowicz's, right. Which is the, they gave me a notice for killing two men and a destruction of one. We started looking it up and then we write up all this great history on Leonard Matlowicz. And it was amazing, it was almost perfect. And it was great that she had suggested it. So we went out there, got married on the grave site. What was interesting was as we were doing it, you know, you walk around, it was this beautiful plot and you get a bench beside it. It was beside this gorgeous tree. And as we're looking around, we were cleaning up the tombstone to, you know, make it look nice and obviously to kind of honor him. Around all of a sudden there's these tombstones that have other gay veterans and soldiers. And so we're kind of looking around and across the path or across the little walkway where more tombstones of gay soldiers and veterans and the grandson of the founder of the Boy Scouts of America. And we're just like, what's going on here? So this guy was walking by, he overheard us talking. And he basically informed us that this is basically where J. Edgar Hoover was buried. And his partner was literally three stones to the right of Leonard Matlowicz. And far, far, far away from J. Edgar Hoover. Because he wasn't allowed to be buried in this plot because that's the sign of the times, you know? So it just was, it was really inspiring and kind of insane how everything just fell together. It was, I guess we just really didn't realize how much significance it had. And it just kept building up on itself. It was really neat. Yeah, and we did, at first we didn't realize the significance, but as we started talking, we got ourselves so excited. Like before the actual wedding, I called him on and I'm like, you wouldn't believe this is so cool, this is so historic, you know? I mean, here we are like, I'm home for my rack. I'm like, I'm on leave from being deployed. And I'm gonna get married if this guy is grave. And when he died, not only could he not get married, it wasn't legal for him to get married where he lived in D.C. But he was also a soldier who got kicked out. He was the first pioneer that fought for gay rights. And here, we're gonna honor this guy by getting married at his gravestone while I'm home for my rack. It's like the coolest story ever. It's just, but it wasn't a story for anybody else. The funny thing about Josh and I is like, our lives are kind of crazy. And like, this whole thing, like we're not like famed hunger people or whatever. When we got married, this was for us. This was a very private thing. It was very, very special for us. And it was very significant for my military service and everything that happened. And it literally was just us. I mean, it was extraordinarily private. It was literally something that we did for our relationship. Let's talk a little bit about the lawsuit. How did that happen? Did the service members of the Legal Defense Network approach you? Yeah, basically they had, one of the things that I think, I mean, they did outreach for people that were married in the military, but it wasn't like they were just picking for people to be in this lawsuit. Really, I mean, each person has their own story. And I mean, if you listen to the other plaintiffs, I mean, everybody's story is amazing. There's a woman with breast cancer. And she doesn't know how her partner will be able to have benefits. And then there's Josh and I who, a mortar went off while I was on the phone. And I thought about it after that a lot. I thought, it's not that I felt like that I could die like tomorrow or whatever, because you never really feel like that. You just drive on. That's what the military did to you. But I did honestly think, what if Josh was in a car crash? And he died. And my mom called me on Skype and said, hey, we have to bury Josh tomorrow. I couldn't go home to see him. I'm married to this guy and I couldn't go home to bury him because he's listed as a friend. And even under Don't Ask, Don't Tell, being repealed, I would have to let my husband be buried while I was in Iraq and not be able to go home and see him. And because he's not legally recognized as my spouse. So I mean, the more stuff like that set in in my brain, the more I felt like that, this really, really affects us too, this lawsuit. And so they started to basically recruit people while I was in Iraq. And that's why it started to become more evident why it was so important. Not only that it's just, we deserve equal treatment. We're consenting adults. We're in love with each other. We want to be married. People just need to get over their biases and just move on with life. It's unbelievable, especially after meeting everyone. All the plaintiffs, I can't believe that they would do that to service members. You can't believe how effective they are by this. And all the heartache that we're all going through. And so, you couldn't find a better group of people that really just want equal rights. No special treatment. They want to be able to make sure that their spouses are taken care of while they're protecting the country. To make sure that if anything does go wrong on either end, that they don't have to worry about the ones that they love. The people that are back home taking care of things for them, taking care of the pets, taking care of the kids, or maybe in a bad place right now and need medical attention, or just some kind of security net. So what's next in the lawsuit? And also, I think there's, you have coming up a name change. Yeah, we definitely want to legally change our names. We talked about it. We just, with everything else, I mean, we've done a lot together. And so many things that we do are just our way to show each other. It sounds really ridiculous, but I mean, we've got these tattoos that basically kind of tell our story that while we were in Iraq, we would try to play a game online to pass time sometimes. And I mean, the date, I'm gonna put the date of our marriage online. And I mean, there's little things that we've done. Could you show us the tattoos and explain what they are? Sure, sure. Mine's pretty much done. It's just literally a game called worms. It was a silly little online game that we played together. And it ate up a lot of our time. It was kind of a fun way of having fun together, telling each other our stories and... I mean, he has like a Skype symbol on his and it, like it's in there because it's how we communicated. And he also put our scores and he put him winning, which is a bunch of BS. The very honest truth. And then mine's the same thing. It's like, it's not done yet. She's still doing it. But basically it's the same thing. It shows the game. And then I'm gonna, on the little grenade that they throw or whatever I'm gonna put, MD050310 to basically say what our wedding date was. So it's kind of cool. Everybody noticed his ring, the minute he got back from R&R. And all of a sudden the flood doors are open. And it's really sad to think that somebody who's over there, we've found this love for each other and it's helped us get through all of this. Helped him get through it because it was really hard that he has to be ashamed of it and afraid of it, even though it's the biggest strength that we had the whole time that he was gone. And that tears your relationship apart. Even if you have all that stress that you're worried about that, then that's an additional level of stress. We still have to go through the little things that everybody else has to go through. And then if you have that on your mind then that just makes you even more stressed out. But it's funny because I think the military has handled it more professionally than civilians have. I mean, they've been professional. Everybody's, you know, they know you for being a soldier. And that's what it should be. You don't know somebody for the color of their skin. You don't know them for what religion they are. We aren't like that. We're all green. We say that all the time. We're all green. We all wear the same thing. We're not male and female. We're all soldiers. And that's the way that it should be. So it should be no different for gay people. And I can say from my experience, it's been no different. You know, I'm gay, but it has nothing to do with anything. They knew me for who I was before and they know me for who I am now. And it's the same, no different. Well, Stephen Hill, Joshua Snyder, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your story. It's just amazing. And thank you for all the amazing work that you're doing. Now on the lawsuit. Yeah, we're gonna be there right in the front lines. Yeah. I've thought, you know, many wars and this is just another one for me. Awesome. Thank you guys so much for speaking with us. I really appreciate it. Thank you.