DADT Victims Sue for Reinstatement (Advocate)
Three decorated service members discharged under “don’t ask, don’t tell” have sued the government in what one advocate says may be the first of several such lawsuits should Congress fail to repeal the antigay policy soon.
Air Force major Michael Almy, Air Force staff sergeant Anthony Loverde, and Navy petty officer second class Jason Knight are all seeking reinstatement in the armed forces, claiming that their constitutional rights were violated. The military, they claim, failed to prove how it had protected morale and readiness by discharging them from their units; on the contrary, officials ignored evidence that the discharges would harm unit cohesion.
Filed Monday in the U.S. district court for Northern California, the lawsuit is now one of several legal challenges to DADT and may be buoyed by court victories earlier this year against the 17-year-old policy. In a case brought by the Log Cabin Republicans, a federal judge in Riverside, Calif., ruled “don’t ask, don’t tell” unconstitutional in September and later issued a worldwide injunction banning enforcement of the policy — one eventually overturned by the U.S. court of appeals for the ninth circuit as the Justice Department pursues an appeal in the case.
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Complete article at Advocate : http://bit.ly/ef5qBF
