Judge Rejects Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Stay

A federal judge rejected the government’s request to stay her decision overturning Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell while the ruling is appealed, saying the feds had failed to prove that stopping the anti-gay policy would cause “irreparable harm” to the armed forces. The government said halting the policy would endanger national security and undermine the Defense Department’s study to figure out the best policy for dealing with open gays. U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips dismissed that argument, saying her decision only required the military to stop kicking out gays, not to end its quest for a new way of dealing with them. The government offered no evidence that gays would hurt unit cohesion or readiness.