... takes a hit, as a court starts to question the government's compelling interest in the policy.
[No update in a long time from Log Cabin on their lawsuit on DADT.]
It's the first appellate court in the country to review the "Don't Ask" policy since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an anti-sodomy statute in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003). Under Lawrence, the 9th Circuit said Wednesday, "Don't Ask" must be subjected to something more stringent than the rational basis test.
While the 9th Circuit declined to apply strict scrutiny to the law regulating homosexuals in the military, the intermediate standard outlined by Judge Ronald Gould on Wednesday had gay rights advocates cheering.
Instead of merely demonstrating that the state had a rational basis for enacting "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the government must now show that discharging Margaret Witt under that policy would significantly further the state's interest in maintaining unit discipline -- and that less-intrusive alternatives are unavailable, Gould wrote.
"Indeed, the facts as alleged by Major Witt indicate the contrary," the judge wrote in a footnote. "Major Witt was a model officer whose sexual activities hundreds of miles away from base did not affect her unit until the military initiated discharge proceedings under DADT and, even then, it was her suspension pursuant to DADT, not her homosexuality, that damaged unit cohesion."
-law.com
The "romantic" days of having non-gay guys (and gals) go off to war to protect their fellow gay citizens safe at home is near over (at least formally, so)...
