FRC WILL FIGHT FOR MILITARY LAW IN FEDERAL COURT

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21, 1995 -- The Family Research Council will defend the 
military's homosexual law before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on 
December 5.  This rare privilege comes after extensive FRC work in 
articulating a case about the real impacts of the radical homosexual agenda in 
the military.

Robert Maginnis, FRC's Military Readiness Project director and a retired Army 
lieutenant colonel, announced on Tuesday that the 4th Circuit which sits in 
Richmond, Virginia, approved FRC's motion to make oral arguments in the case 
of Navy Lt. Paul G. Thomasson.  This is the first challenge to President 
Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" policy expected to reach the Supreme Court 
next year.

Mr. Thomasson, who worked for the admiral administering "don't ask, don't 
tell," told his commander about his sexual orientation days after the policy 
went into effect.  After the Navy moved to discharge him, he challenged the 
policy in federal court and lost.

Melissa Wells-Petry, a former Army litigator and now representing FRC, will 
argue that the White House and Pentagon failed to follow a newly enacted law 
when writing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.  The law, enacted by Congress 
and signed by President Clinton, bars homosexuals from serving in the 
military.  But the regulations allow homosexuals to serve as long as they keep 
their orientation private.

Mrs. Wells-Petry explains, "They're definitely trying to do what I call `the 
wink' in the regulations as opposed to a clear-cut rule. They're trying to put 
as a matter of policy, `We're going to wink at it until it becomes flagrant.'  
In our view it's just not a workable policy."

The Military Readiness Project has aggressively filed amicus briefs in most 
homosexual military cases because, as Colonel Maginnis says, "The Clinton 
Administration is ignoring the law and trying to erase centuries of prudent 
policy in favor of allowing homosexuals to serve in the military."

FRC's team will join a three-sided argument with the Justice Department 
defending the regulations, Mr. Thomasson's attorney asking that the law and 
the policy be ruled unconstitutional and the Military Readiness Project 
defending the law.

In accepting FRC's motion for oral argument, the Court acknowledges that there 
is "extraordinary" justification for a third party to argue. The extraordinary 
situation exists because neither the government or Thomasson is addressing the 
right issue.