The Northwest is becoming the scene of the next big chapter of DADT, almost 20 years after it started by Grethe Cammermeyer. Opening arguments began yesterday in Major Margaret Witt's challenge of her military discharge under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".
The AP reports: Witt sat in the courtroom Monday amid her supporters, including Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, a fighter pilot from Idaho who is fighting his own discharge by the U.S. Air Force.
Peter Phipps, a Justice Department lawyer representing the Air Force, insisted during his opening statement that Witt's conduct necessitated her firing. That included a long-term relationship with a civilian woman, an affair with a married woman and two earlier relationships with fellow servicewomen, Witt acknowledged in a May deposition. A 2004 e-mail from the married woman's husband to the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. John Jumper, prompted the investigation into Witt's sexuality. Witt remains in a relationship with that woman, whose husband divorced her.
"By committing adultery, she compromised her integrity and her ability to lead," Phipps said. "Plaintiff set an example of a disregard for Air Force policies."
Witt's discharge therefore eliminated a risk to unit cohesion and morale, he added. He said the support she has received from colleagues is irrelevant; the law's constitutionality doesn't depend on the views of her friends.
The Seattle Times reports: So in 2004, he was stunned to learn of an Air Force decision to suspend one member of his unit, Maj. Margaret Witt, for homosexual conduct that violated the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. "I felt it was a dishonorable act on the part of the Air Force," Schaffer testified Monday as the leadoff witness in a U.S. District Court trial to determine whether Witt, who was eventually forced into retirement, should be reinstated with the 446th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron.
U.S. News - Breaking News and Latest Headlines
Celebrity News, Photos and Videos - HuffPost Celebrity
LGBT News, Culture, Opinion and Conversations
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts
-
Associated Press reporter David Crary tweets that NOM's Maggie Gallagher has been replaced as the organization's chair by Chapman U...
-
Wonder Woman Approved! Anderson Cooper, Jeffrey Tambor, Judith Light, Laverne Cox, Rupert Friend, Lynda Carter, Ross Mathews, Jussie Smo...
-
by Alan Bounville Below is my extended response to the article titled “T he LGBT Grassroots vs. HRC: Fighting for a One-Bill Equality St...
-
Zachary Quinto , the former Heroes star who transitioned to the big screen as Mr. Spock in Star Trek, is currently appearing on the New York...
-
BOMBSHELL: Brendon Ayanbadejo Cut By The Baltimore Ravens AND Says Up to four players to Come OUT at Once! PUNK'D: Gay Repor...
-
After enduring a ruckus over its segregated student government elections, a Mississippi middle school has nixed rules it says were put into ...
-
By M.K. Scott OUTscene Editor With all the news of late centering on Adam Lambert , I had a rare opportunity to meet and interview the ...
-
Ken Mehlman sent pundits chattering when he came out of the closet to support gay marriage yesterday. Here's what they're saying: ...
-
(AP) – The father of a Marine killed in Iraq and whose funeral was picketed by anti-gay protesters was ordered to pay the protesters' a...
-
Google "transgender teenager" and you'll come up with dire statistics and horror stories of teens being harassed, homeless, ev...
Contributors/Series
Our Favorite Sites
- Boy Culture
- Deep Dish
- Edge Seattle
- Fancast
- GLBT Yellow Pages
- Gay Crawler
- Gay Dating on OneGoodLove.com
- Greg in Hollywood
- Jesse Archer
- Kenneth in the 212
- Mark's List in Florida!
- Newser
- Out in Seatttle
- PQ Monthly
- Planet Homo
- Queer Me Up
- Seattle Gay News
- Smoking Cocktail
- The Stranger
- Towleroad
- Trans Lives Matter
- Views from a Broad
- We Love Soaps
- Wicked Gay Blog
Creative Commons License
OutView Online by MK Scott is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.outviewonline.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.outviewonline.com/p/contact-us.html.
No comments:
Post a Comment