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Kizzume
Site Admin
Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 2832
Location: Tacoma, WA USA
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 Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 12:16 pm Post subject: Court: military can't automatically discharge gays |
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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004430361_apwaairforcelesbian3rdldwritethru.html?syndication=rss
| Quote: | The military cannot automatically discharge people because they're gay, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday in the case of a highly decorated flight nurse who sued the Air Force over her dismissal.
It's the first appeals court ruling in the country that evaluates "don't ask, don't tell" in light of Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court's 2003 decision that struck down that state's ban on gay sex as an unconstitutional intrusion into people's privacy, legal experts say.
Passed by Congress in 1993, "don't ask, don't tell" prohibits the military from asking about the sexual orientation of service members but requires discharge of those who acknowledge being gay or engage in homosexual activity.
The three judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not strike down the law, but they reinstated Maj. Margaret Witt's lawsuit, saying the Air Force must prove that her dismissal furthered the military's stated goals of troop readiness and unit cohesion.
Historically, when homosexual service members have sued over their dismissals, courts have accepted the military's argument that having gays in the service is generally bad for morale and can lead to sexual tension. But the Supreme Court's opinion in Lawrence changed the legal landscape, the judges said, and requires more scrutiny over whether "don't ask, don't tell" is constitutional as applied in individual cases.
Under Wednesday's ruling, military officials "need to prove that having this particular gay person in the unit really hurts morale, and the only way to improve morale is to discharge this person," said Aaron Caplan, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington state who worked on the case.
Witt, a flight nurse based at McChord Air Force Base near Tacoma, was suspended without pay in 2004 after the Air Force received a tip that she had been in a long-term relationship with a civilian woman. Witt was honorably discharged last year, after having put in 18 years - two short of what she needed to receive retirement benefits.
She sued the Air Force in 2006, but U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton dismissed her claims, saying the Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence v. Texas did not change the legality of "don't ask, don't tell." |
The rest of the article is in the link.
This is interesting news. I'm hoping it's the beginning of the end of banning gays in the military.
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Segep
Joined: 10 Nov 2007
Posts: 222
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| Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 9:21 pm Post subject: |
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Did you hear about the California Supreme Court's recent ruling that nothing less than full marriage is Constitutional? No? Well, it received a pretty lackluster response. My feeling is that finally, the American public has found something even more insidious than the Gay Agenda to focus on, namely $5.00/gallon gasoline. 
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