LCR Attorneys Respond to DOJ Stay Request in DADT Case
This afternoon in California, attorneys representing Log Cabin Republicans filed a brief in opposition to the U.S. government’s request for a stay of U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips’s injunction issued in Log Cabin Republicans v. United States.
Arguing that the government met none of the four standards required to be met for a stay to be granted, LCR opens its brief by curtly noting:
This is at least the government’s fifth request for a stay in this case, following the stay it requested in its Objections to plaintiff’s proposed judgment and the three prior requests identified in plaintiff’s Response to those Objections.
Dan Woods, the attorney from White & Case arguing the case for LCR said in a statement shortly after the filing, “As our brief shows, the government has clearly failed to justify why a stay should be granted.”
In the filing, Woods argues on behalf of LCR that the government is unlikely to succeed on appeal on the constitutional merits of its case, that the government will not be irreparably harmed if a stay is not granted, that a stay will injure LCR members and “all homosexual servicemembers” and that the public interest weighs against granting a stay.
In his statement, Woods noted, “The position of the government that the court’s injunction will prove harmful to the nation’s military strength and readiness is contradicted by the evidence in the case. In fact, because Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell weakens our national security, as the judge’s ruling found and as the President has repeatedly admitted, the effect of staying the injunction would be to continue to weaken our national security. The government should be ashamed to be seeking that result.”
In an interesting move, LCR included in its filing a copy of the tweet sent out on Thursday from President Barack Obama’s twitter account, which stated, “Anybody who wants to serve in our armed forces and make sacrifices on our behalf should be able to. DADT will end & it will end on my watch.”
Christian Berle, deputy executive director of LCR, said in a statement, “At the same time the Pentagon was complying with the injunction against enforcing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ President Obama’s attorneys were making the argument that compliance would be impossible.”
He continued, “Granting this stay would perpetuate a grave injustice against servicemembers whose only desire is to defend our country honorably and honestly.”
According to the filing, a hearing on the motion for a stay will be held at 2:30 p.m. Pacific, Monday, Oct. 18.
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