Ninth Circuit Finally Halts DADT Enforcement

Better late than never as the saying goes. Today, the U. S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the stay that it had imposed to block the world wide injunction that was issued by U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips in Log Cabin Republicans v. United States which blocked enforcement of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Frankly, the stay should never have been issued in my opinion. The immediate result is that the U. S. military must immediately cease enforcement of DADT while the wait continues for the Department of Defense and the White House to deliver the certifications needed to finally repeal DADT. The order lifting the stay can be found here. No doubt the Christo-fascists will have yet another conniption fit and whine about judicial tyranny. Metro Weekly has coverage on this development. Here are highlights:
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In an order issued by a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips's judgment halting the worldwide enforcement of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" as a result of her decision in Log Cabin Republicans v. United States has been put back in effect.
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DADT cannot be enforced, per the order, unless the government gets a stay of the order from either the full Ninth Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court pending an appeal of today's decision.
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The three-judge panel -- Judges Alex Kozinski, Kim Wardlaw and Richard Paez -- decided to lift the appellate court's earlier stay of Phillips's order pending the appeal of the LCR case because, the judges write, "The circumstances and balance of hardships have changed, and appellants/cross-appellees can no longer satisfy the demanding standard for issuance of a stay."
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Among the circumstances cited by the court are the July 1 filing in Karen Golinski's federal case seeking health insurance benefits for her wife and the related earlier Feb. 23 letter from Attorney General Eric Holder declaring that he and President Barack Obama had decided that heightened scrutiny applies to classifications -- such as DADT.
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The judges also note that "the process of repealing Section 654 [-- the DADT law --] is well underway, and the preponderance of the armed forces are expected to have been trained by mid-summer." Smith echoed this fact, writing to Metro Weekly, "[I]mplementation of the DADT repeal voted by the Congress and signed in to law by the President last December is proceeding smoothly, is well underway, and certification is just weeks away."
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In addition to lifting the stay, the Ninth Circuit set arguments on the appeal of the merits of the LCR case itself -- as opposed to the stay of Phillips's order pending the appeal, which was what the judges altered today -- for the week of Aug. 29. White House and Justice Department spokespersons did not respond to requests for comment.