Community | September 25, 2010 | 8 comments

Lesbian Maj. Witt Reinstated!!!

source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1314280/Dont-ask--U-S-military-nurse-win-job-dismiss...

donkeyfly69
A flight nurse discharged for being gay could win the right to return the U.S. Air Force - six years after her dismissal.

U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton said he would rule this Friday whether former Major Margaret Witt would be reinstated, despite ruling against her in a case in 2006.

Then, Leighton rejected Witt's claims that the Air Force violated her rights when it fired her under the 'don't ask, don't tell' law.

But an appeals court panel overruled Leighton two years later, concluding that the military could not fire people for being gay unless it showed that their dismissal was necessary 'to further military goals'.

As support grows for repealing the ban on openly gays in the military, the judge expressed doubts about her dismissal.

However his comments came hours after Senate Republicans blocked legislation to repeal the 1993 'don't ask, don't tell' law on gays serving in the military.

Witt joined the Air Force in 1987 and was a flight nurse with an aeromedical evacuation squadron responsible for transporting and caring for injured soldiers.

She was suspended in 2004, just before she was due to retire, when her commanders learned she was in a relationship with a civilian woman.

In the latest trial Witt's attorneys, led by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, insisted that Witt was well respected and liked by her colleagues, that her sexuality never caused problems in the unit, and that her dismissal actually hurt military goals such as morale, unit cohesion and troop readiness.

Several members of the squadron testified that this was true, and said they would welcome Witt back to the unit.

James Lobsenz, an attorney for Witt, said in his closing argument that the government presented no evidence that Witt would cause problems if returned to her unit.

It was unconscionable, he said, that she had had to conceal her sexuality for years even though she had won awards for distinguished service in evacuating and treating wounded troops and government employees from Afghanistan and elsewhere.
  1. groups:
    Community,   Gay,   LGBT,   Military,   7 more
  2. tags:
    Military,  DADT,  Don't Ask Don't Tell,  Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal,  1 more
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