October 14th, 2010
Even though the Justice Department has announced that they intend to appeal the Federal Court ruling that declared “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” unconstitutional while filing for a stay in the injunction prohibiting its enforcement, the Defense Department has announced that they will bring to immediate halt to all DADT discharges while the case is on appeal.
“Earlier today, the staff judge advocate generals from the military services, in consultation with the Office of the Secretary of Defense Office of General Counsel, sent to their service staff judge advocate counterparts in the field an e-mail informing them of the ruling by Judge Virginia Phillips of the Central District of California, issuing an injunction barring the enforcement or application of 10 United States Code 654, commonly known as the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ statute,” Pentagon spokesman Marine Col. Dave Lapan said in a written statement.
This builds on news from earlier that the Air Force had announced that they would no longer discharge servicemembers under DADT.
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ebohlman
October 15th, 2010
Let me get this, er, straight: The DOJ is appealing the injunction on the grounds that it would be an extreme hardship for the DOD to halt discharges immediately. At the same time, the DOD has decided to halt discharges immediately, as if it’s a simple thing to do.
The Executive branch seems to have a malformed corpus callosum (the part of the brain that, among other things, lets the right hand know what the left hand is doing).
Right now the only party who could accurately answer the question “is DADT still in force” is Schroedinger’s Cat.
Richard Rush
October 15th, 2010
My cynical side is wondering if this suspension of discharges will be treated by many as a kind of beta-test period ahead of the formal ending of DADT, during which time a multitude of issues and problems will be “discovered,” thereby necessitating an extended delay in fully ending DADT until all the bugs are worked out.
I cannot imagine how ending DADT can be anywhere near as logistically complicated as so many want us to believe.
We are told that our [straight] soldiers are the bravest, toughest and greatest fighting force in the world . . . except for when they are defenseless/fragile/delicate little pansies when in the presence of a gay soldier.
Everett
October 15th, 2010
So…this is good news right? At least gay and lesbian military folks won’t be discharged, but they won’t get family benefits either????
gordo
October 15th, 2010
I would assume that spousal benefits for gay families of military personnel would be a major challenge to DOMA.
Everett
October 15th, 2010
You know, the more I think about this court ruling, the more I wish the Judge had given the military like 120 days notice to change any regulations that would occur before DADT was void. Instead, the military and Obama’s DOJ are left in position of saying “we’re not ready for this change!!! Regulations need to be change to account for gays serving openly (like sexual harrassment and codes of conduct regulations).
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