GI Justice Is Coming to The Chapter House

Starting Wednesday, July 1st, I’m launching a biweekly meeting series at The Chapter House (250 Broadalbin St SW #104, Albany) to bring people up to speed on GI Justice and start building real people power around it. We’ll meet every other Wednesday, with video conferencing available for those who can’t be there in person.

Before I say anything else, I want to name something that usually goes unsaid in veteran advocacy spaces: most of the people I’m hoping to reach with this aren’t veterans. That’s not a problem to work around — it’s the point. Military families deserve advocates who understand what’s at stake without having had to serve themselves. If you’ve never worn a uniform and you’re reading this, you’re exactly who I’m building this group around.

The short version of what GI Justice is about

In 2009, Senator Jeff Sessions — yes, that Jeff Sessions — introduced what he called “The Soldiers’ Amendment” to the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act. It passed unanimously the same day it was introduced. No Nay votes. Bipartisan floor support. Sessions himself said the intent was to put military families “on equal footing with other protected classes.”

The amendment became 18 U.S.C. § 1389. It makes it a federal crime to assault a service member or their immediate family because of their military status. It is, in effect, the only federal civil rights law that protects military families from hate crimes.

And nobody enforces it.

Not the FBI. Not the Department of Justice. The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has never claimed jurisdiction. There is no reporting pathway. There is no data. No one — including the agencies nominally tasked with protecting military families — knows how often this law is being violated, because nobody is tracking it.

I’ve spent years documenting this gap. I’ve filed FOIA requests. I’ve filed federal lawsuits. I’ve written letters to the NAACP, progressive Christian institutions, and civil rights organizations that invoke veteran credibility when it serves their brand — and then go quiet when asked to do the same work for military families that they do for every other protected group.

The record is at pewpewhq.com/record. It’s public. It’s (going to be) comprehensive. It documents not just the law, but the non-response.

Why a meeting series, why now

This work has been done largely in isolation. That’s been appropriate in some ways — the documentary record does its own work, and I’ve been deliberate about building it carefully rather than loudly. But a record without witnesses is just a filing cabinet. What GI Justice needs now is people: people who understand the issue, people who can speak to it in their own communities, people who can say I looked into this, and it’s real.

That’s what these meetings are for. Not to brief you and send you home, but to build something durable.

Before the first session, I’d ask you to read this: What is The Soldiers’ Amendment? It’s short, it’s documented, and it’s where the conversation starts.

Full details and RSVP at chaphouse.org/events. Attendance is free; we’ll pass the hat at every meeting.

Semper,

Br. Logan Martin Isaac, HoSM