Log Cabin DADT Trial Begins

Calling the discriminatory policy “one of the most pressing civil rights issues in our great country today,” attorneys challenging “don’t ask, don’t tell” in federal court said Tuesday the U.S. government has no legitimate basis for maintaining the ban on gay soldiers serving openly in the armed forces.

Opening statements in Log Cabin Republicans v. United States of America began shortly after 9 a.m. Pacific time in the federal courtroom of U.S. district judge Virginia A. Phillips in Riverside, Calif. White and Case attorney Dan Woods, representing the national gay Republican group that filed the lawsuit in 2004, said in the non-jury trial that the government denies gays and lesbians “the privilege of serving their country if they choose to be as candid and honest about their human nature as their heterosexual comrades are.”

Woods said the legal landscape regarding the rights of gays and lesbians has shifted dramatically since DADT became law, most notably with the Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas striking down sodomy laws. “We intend to prove at this trial that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ does not advance an important government interest, that its intrusions into the constitutional rights of homosexuals do not significantly further any important government interest, and that those intrusions are not necessary to further any important government interest,” Woods said in a 20-minute opening statement.

Assistant U.S. attorney Paul Freeborne said that Log Cabin has no standing to sue on behalf of its members affected by the policy. Log Cabin has identified two such individuals — an anonymous Army Reserves lieutenant colonel who continues to serve in the military, and Servicemembers United executive director Alex Nicholson, who was discharged in 2002. Freeborne said in a five-minute opening statement that Log Cabin has failed to establish the membership of both individuals.

That issue aside, “We do not believe that a trial is necessary or appropriate” and “the court should resolve this case as a matter of law,” Freeborne said.