Air Force Maj. Mike Almy, Air Force Staff Sgt. Anthony Loverde, and Navy Petty Officer Second Class Jason Knight today launched a new Don’t Ask Don’t Tell lawsuit against the federal government with the backing of SLDN. All three men are decorated veterans discharged under DADT. Defense Sec. Robert Gates, who really really wants Congress and not the courts to decide the fate of DADT, is just going to love this one! And don’t even expect this to be the last one. Following a successful suit from Maj. Margaret Witt, and ongoing success with the Log Cabin Republicans’ federal suit, it’s clear the pace of repeal is quickening within the judicial system, while Senate Republicans (and a smattering of Democrats) continue stalling.
randy
Major Almy is a hero. And a humpy one at that!
Addison
Maybe this lawsuit will get somewhere in 4 or 5 years, if Almy can keep his dick in his pants long enough for it to stay alive. Isn’t that why he got in trouble in the first place?
Cam
@Addison:
Hello anti-gay troll.
No, actually this guy was kicked out AFTER the military searched his private, not military e-mail account and used the fact that he was talking about gay issues etc… in there as the basis to kick him out. But you know…nice try.
Rick Gold
Yeah,
MAJ Almy was kicked out AFTER they snooped.
The USAF did not ask or tell, they just took.
And yes, MAJ Almy needs to come to my house, preferably sans pants.
gew
They didn’t snoop, because Senator McCain says they don’t DO that as DADT doesn’t WORK that way and he knows ’cause he was IN the army and they TOLD him that’s not how it works and he said you can believe whatever you want about how you THINK it works but that it doesn’t work that way and so there.
[email protected]
Slight correction, Cam, just so anyone currently in the military doesn’t make the same mistake re “private.” Whether he was using a government e-mail account is irrelevant, as he was using a government computer. Just another example of how thoroughly evil the policy is.
As the the lawsuit, bravo to the three plaintiffs for their willingness to be its subjects, but this one is LONG overdue. SLDN’s abandonment of legal assaults on the ban following the First Circuit dismissal of “Cook, et al.,” in 2008 has been a major part of their overall strategic failure, naively continually to trust, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that Obama would keep his promise to personally LEAD the end to the ban. [The Fehrenbach legal action in August was just to stop his discharge, and became moot upon an agreement between a District Court in Idaho, the DOJ, the Air Force, and his attorneys not to discharge him without notice. If my understanding is correct that no subsequent legal challenge occurred, it is incomphrehensible to me as Fehrenbach, unlike two of these three clients, was recommended for discharge AFTER the initial Witt ruling.]
As for “Witt,” some may recall that at that infamous February 2nd Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, President Gates promised that, after ignoring it for a year and a half, he would release in March, quote, “new rules and procedures in light of the appeals court decision in ‘Witt versus the Department of the Air Force’ for the areas of the country covered by the appellate court.” Not only did he never do that, but the ODOJ viciously fought her at the September District Court retrial, suddenly FALSELY claiming that the main reason she was discharged was not DADT but because of “adultery.” And, of course, when they lost, the ODOJ and Pentagon appealed. The last I heard was that the Air Force was demanding that Witt, whom they had once used in recruiting brochures for flight nurses, was demanding that she prove she is still capable of being a flight nurse herself before even considering obeying the court’s order to reinstate her.
Now our Fierce Avocado will be defending the ban in court again!
Daez
What part of THE SUPREME COURT IS RULED BY CONSERVATIVES do people not tend to get? Seriously, it doesn’t matter at all what the lower courts decide on these issues because in order for them to have any sway they will have to be decided by the Supreme Court which will not over step its bounds in this case. The only way that DADT will be overturned is through legislative means. TH USSC has a track record of refusing to change military policy regardless of any amendment to the constitution.
Daez
@Cam: If “private” e-mail is sent on a computer that is owned by your employer (including the US military) then its quite obvious that you decided to give up your expectation of privacy. Your employer has the right to search their computers, their cell phones, their laptops and even their offices. You own none of it if you use it in their domain, so this wasn’t a violation of privacy like you want to claim it was.
Cam
@Daez:
DEAZ, the policy is “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Dont’ Pursue”. His e-mails were searched with the specific intent of finding out whether or not he was gay. That is a complete violation of the policy as written.
But before you jump on somebody you really need to actually read what I wrote and what I was responding to. Somebody claimed that this guy got kicked out because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. Insinuating that he was caught having sex. No, they had to seek out his e-mail, break the password and sort through them to try to find out if he was gay or not.