'Don't ask, don't tell' foes win legal victory

San Francisco Chronicle
July 9, 2010

The federal judge overseeing a challenge to the "don't ask, don't tell" law, scheduled for trial in Southern California next week, has ruled in favor of a gay rights group on a crucial issue - how much evidence the government needs to justify the ban on openly homosexual members of the armed forces.

Obama administration lawyers have argued that courts must let "don't ask, don't tell" stand if they find that Congress could have reasonably concluded that excluding gays and lesbians would make the military more effective - the standard most favorable to supporters of the 1993 law.

But U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips of Riverside, in her final pretrial ruling, said Wednesday that higher court rulings in recent years have raised the bar for the government to justify laws that single out gays and lesbians for harsher treatment. the rest