Pardoned former officer says military gay sex conviction 'hangs over me'

Steve Marose, a former US Air Force officer who was discharged for being gay and who served prison time for consensual sodomy, said he had long hoped that one day he would be pardoned.

"I can pretend that 'Oh, I'm resilient,' you know, 'I got this,' but in the end, it's trauma," Mr Marose told the BBC.

He is one of thousands whose convictions were overturned on Wednesday, after US President Joe Biden announced that he would pardon those found guilty of crimes under a military law that banned gay sex for more than 60 years.

Mr Biden described the pardon as "righting an historic wrong".

"I'm just glad the day has come," said Mr Marose.

He and other veterans were convicted under a provision of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which criminalised sodomy from 1951 to 2013.