HOMOSEXUALS IN THE MILITARY CASE, THOMASSON V. PERRY, TO BE HEARD IN U.S. COURT OF APPEALS, 4TH CIRCUIT FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL WILL PRESENT ARGUMENTS WASHINGTON DC, Dec. 1, 1995 -- Family Research Council Attorney Melissa Wells-Petry will present arguments on why the 1993 law excluding homosexuals from the military should be upheld during a Tuesday, December 5 hearing. Wells-Petry, a former Army attorney who litigated the military's ban on homosexuals, will defend the law in the landmark case of Thomasson v. Perry before the U.S. Court of Appeals, 4th Circuit, in Richmond, Va. To the surprise of court watchers, the Appeals Court granted FRC's request to address them -- despite the objections of the Department of Justice and attorneys for Thomasson, a self-identified homosexual serving in the military. Ironically, Family Research Council will be in the position of actually defending the law-- which would seem to be the province of the Justice Department. However, the Clinton Administration's Justice Department has taken the more liberal position of building their case on the regulations implemented to enact the law. According to Family Research Council analyst Robert Maginnis, from the beginning of the Don't Ask/Don't Tell policy, "the strategy of the Clinton Administration has been to set up a confusing situation between the law and the regulations. "The confusion was designed to lead to litigation," Maginnis said. "We hope the court will declare the regulations unconstitutional and sustain the law of the land," Maginnis said. "It would be a tremendous act on behalf of the men and women who put their lives on the line for their nation daily. They deserve to serve in an environment that does not put them in unnecessarily intimate and intrusive circumstances."