Legal News

Don't Ask, Don't Tell trial opens in Riverside

By Richard Binder

A case filed by the Log Cabin Republicans challenging the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy excluding homosexuals from serving in the military has been brought to trial today in front of U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips in Riverside.

The case represents the only formal constitutional challenge to Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which allows the discharge of service members who are found to have engaged in a homosexual act, make a statement that demonstrates a "propensity" to engage in a homosexual act or have entered into a same-sex marriage or attempted marriage. Attorneys say the trial should last a week.

White & Case is representing the Log Cabin Republicans pro bono. Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Freeborne is defending the statute underlying the ban despite the Obama administration's push to repeal it, and continues to assert that the case shouldn't even be in trial.

Full story at NLJ.com.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on July 14, 2010 (boomark / email).