Federal appeals court restores DADT

A judge’s order requiring the United States military to allow the recruitment of openly gay troops was temporarily frozen on Wednesday.

This follows Friday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips declaring the 1993 don’t ask don’t tell policy unconstitutional.

A three-judge panel of the ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco granted the request for a freeze following a request by the Department of Justice.

The panel asked the gay rights lawyers who brought the lawsuit challenging DADT to file arguments by Monday, at which point the panel will decide whether it will extend the freeze while it reviews Judge Phillips’ decision.

After DADT was overturned, the Pentagon suspended discharge proceedings for gay members.

It’s unclear how the freeze will affect the military’s proceedings regarding gay service members.

Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith declined to comment to The Associated Press on what action the Defense Department would take during this process. However, many commentators have assumed DADT will be in effect for the duration of the appeals process.

“For the reasons stated in the government’s submission, we believe a stay is appropriate,” Smith said.

Proponents of DADT’s repeal said they aren’t discouraged.

“We didn’t come this far to quit now, and we expect that once the 9th Circuit has received and considered full briefing on the government’s application for a stay, it will deny that application,” said Dan Woods, a lawyer representing the conservative gay rights’ group the Log Cabin Republicans in their challenge of the law, in a statement.

Government lawyers have said that a repeal of DADT would put the U.S. armed forces in danger by harming troop morale and unit cohesion.

President Barack Obama has said that he supports DADT’s repeal but through the legislature and not the court system.