
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 28, 1993                   TAG: 9307280183
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

7 MILITARY HOMOSEXUALS CHALLENGE POLICY

Just eight days after the White House announced compromise regulations governing their lives, seven gay and lesbian members of the armed services sued the government Tuesday, contending that their treatment was unconstitutional.

In the first of what will likely be several court challenges to the new regulations, the plaintiffs - gay and lesbian officers as well as enlisted personnel - asked that they be treated not according to their sexual orientation but by their abilities.

The decision to go to the courts so soon after the regulations were issued was the latest sign that the gay rights movement, which was told by Bill Clinton during last year's campaign that he would lift outright the armed forces' half-century-old ban on homosexuals, had now all but abandoned its efforts for relief from the White House and Congress.

By a vote of 43-12, the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday rejected an attempt to remove the ban altogether, and gay rights leaders said that in the current political climate the movement's last best hope to eliminate the military's restrictions lay in legal challenges.

The compromise permits homosexuals to serve in the military as long as they remain silent, except in the most private of settings, about their sexual orientation and do not engage in homosexual acts. It also requires "credible information" before a commander may undertake an inquiry into suspected homosexual conduct.

The regulations go into effect on Oct. 1, but it likely will be many months before federal appeals courts, and perhaps the Supreme Court, issue conclusive rulings as to whether they are constitutional.

The suit challenged the regulations on familiar grounds, using the same arguments that have been asserted with a mixed record of success in suits against the old ban.

Two of the plaintiffs, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and a petty officer in the Coast Guard, were identified by the pseudonyms Jane Doe and John Roe. Their lawyers said they feared being discharged if they were identified by their real names, because their suit amounts to a public declaration that they are homosexuals.

But the five other plaintiffs did identify themselves. They are 1st. Lt. Donita Holloway of the New Mexico National Guard, Staff Sgt. Harold McCarthy of the Air Force Reserve, 1st. Lt. Kenneth Osborn of the Army Reserve, Sgt. Steven Spencer of the Army Reserve and Lt. Richard von Wohld of the Navy Reserve.

by CNB