By DMITRY RASHNITSOV

On October 12, gay and lesbian military personnel serving in the United States Armed Services all over the world were finally able to breath a sigh of relief that they wouldn’t lose their job if they were outed. However, the past week and a half has been more stressful in the fight to repeal, ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ than the previous 17 years of the policies existence.

The Log Cabin Republicans, a group that works within the Republican Party to advocate equal rights for all Americans filed suit in federal district court against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 2004. The case went to trial in Riverside, California in July of 2010, and Judge Virginia Phillips ruled on September 9, 2010 that the policy violated the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution. On October 12, Judge Phillips granted a world-wide injunction against enforcement of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

“After finding in Log Cabin Republicans v. United States that ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ violates service members’ First and Fifth Amendment rights, a world-wide injunction was the only reasonable solution,” said Christian Berle, Deputy Executive Director of Log Cabin Republicans. “These soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coast guardsmen sacrifice so much in defense of our nation and our Constitution. It is imperative that their constitutional freedoms be protected as well. This decision is also a victory for all who support a strong national defense. No longer will our military be compelled to discharge service members with valuable skills and experience because of an archaic policy mandating irrational discrimination. The United States is stronger because of this injunction, and the Log Cabin Republicans is proud to have brought the case that made it possible.”

President Barack Obama had long campaigned for the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and continues to say that he wants the law overturned by congress, but his administration has decided to appeal Judge Phillip’s injunction to a higher court.

“First of all, I haven’t ‘mentioned’ that I’m against ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ I have said very clearly, including in a State of the Union address, that I’m against ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and that we’re going to end this policy. That’s point number one,” President Obama stated during the MTV-BET “Youth Town Hall” meeting October 14 at BET Networks studio in Washington, D.C. “Point number two, the difference between my position right now and Harry Truman’s was that Congress explicitly passed a law that took away the power of the executive branch to end this policy unilaterally. So this is not a situation in which, with a stroke of a pen, I can simply end the policy.”

While President Obama’s pen seems to have run out of ink, lawyers at the Justice department have had time to type up responses to Judge Phillips and continue to fight her decision. They plan on taking the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco and, ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The farther the decision gets from the presentation of evidence in the trial court, the more likely it is that courts will assume the military must have some critically important interest at stake,” said Diane Mazur, a law professor who opposes the policy.

Nearly 14,000 troops have been fired since the policy’s enactment. The Pentagon has come out and stated that they will have difficulty with complying with the DADT injunction. “Requiring the Department to cease all enforcement of DADT, immediately and worldwide, will cause significant disruptions to the force in the short term,” a statement from the Pentagon said. The Pentagon also suggested that it has not provided the troops with any training to prepare for the suspension of the ban.

Since the Judge’s ruling there have been no incidents filed relating to Unit cohesion problems, disciplinary problems, resignations, or privacy problems relating to openly-gay troops. A recent survey of armed services personal said that 2/3 of them believed that someone in their unit is gay, so training troops is probably more of an excuse than an actual problem that the army will realistically have to deal with.

For those banking on DADT being repealed during the lame-duck Congress session after the elections where the Democrats are expected to have their last chance at a majority Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) has already come out and publicly stated that he will filibuster any attempt to repeal DADT.

“I will filibuster or stop it from being brought up until we have a thorough and complete study of the effect on morale and battle effectiveness,” McCain said.

The former presidential candidate said in 2006 that he would support a repeal of DADT. Is it old age or his maverick ways that have caused McCain to forget what he once stood for?

While congressmen, the president, judges, attorneys and civil rights groups continue the DADT fight in a courtroom and through paperwork, real closeted gay and lesbian troops all over the world must sit and wait to see what the outcome of all of this legal wrangling will be, while living in fear that someone with a vendetta against them may out them for no reason and cause a good person to needlessly lose their job.