Judge Virginia Phillips issued a tentative ruling Monday rejecting the federal government’s request to stop her injunction on “don’t ask, don’t tell.” In what appears to be some kind of new warm-up drill for gay soldiers, the Pentagon is having them jump out of and back into the closet at a rapid pace. First the Pentagon agreed to comply with the ruling, then (later that afternoon) they sent out a memo saying “in light of the appeal and the application for the stay,” “hup-to” back in. Despite the memo’s positioning of the appeal and stay as a Department of Justice effort, Clifford L. Stanley, undersecretary of Defense and author of the memo, submitted a sworn declaration to the court that said an immediate injunction would undermine a global survey the Pentagon’s conducting, not mentioned in the memo, to figure out how to allow people that are “openly homosexual” to serve.
Judge Phillips said, “The arguments by the government are vague” and failed to show that an injunction would harm military readiness or troop cohesion, pointing out that she ordered the military to stop kicking out gays, which doesn’t prohibit them from crafting a better policy. She plans to issue her final decision about rejecting the stay early today.
Judge tentatively rejects ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ stay request [LAT via Daily Beast]
