Judge orders global halt to DADT enforcement

A U.S. District court judge has ordered that the military halt all enforcement--worldwide--of "don't ask, don't tell."

U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips issued the injunction (text here) Tuesday after finding last month that the policy, passed by Congress in 1993, violates the Constitutional rights of servicemembers. She acted on a lawsuit brought by a gay GOP group, the Log Cabin Republicans.

The Justice Department had urged Phillips, who sits in Riverside, Calif., to limit any relief in the case to the Log Cabin group or to the named plaintiffs, but the judge rebuffed that request. Her order applies to all U.S. military operations across the globe....

"The president will continue to work as hard as he can to change the law that he believes is fundamentally unfair," Gibbs said, while reserving comment on the injunction.

The White House could have done this already, ordering a moratorium on enforcement and discharges under "don't ask, don't tell" pending either Congressional action, the release of the DoD's survey of the military, or both. As of yet, no word from the administration as to whether the DOJ will accept her ruling.

You can discuss this more in GlowNZ's diary.