Navy Will Reinstate Gay Sailor : Military: Officials relent after judge threatens to hold government in contempt. Keith Meinhold is ordered to report for duty Thursday.

In an abrupt turnaround, the Navy agreed Tuesday to reinstate a Bay Area sailor who was discharged earlier this year after disclosing his homosexuality in a television interview.

The Navy’s decision came after a court hearing Tuesday afternoon in which a federal judge in Los Angeles threatened to hold the government in contempt if it failed to follow his order to return former Petty Officer Keith Meinhold to his job as a sonar instructor at Moffett Field Naval Air Station, near Sunnyvale.

“The Navy will comply with the judge’s ruling,” said Cmdr. Craig Quigley, a Navy spokesman in Washington. “He (Meinhold) will report for duty on Thursday morning.”

In a preliminary ruling issued Friday, U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter ordered the Navy to reinstate the 12-year veteran, who sued the military after he was honorably discharged in August, several months after Meinhold said during an ABC news interview that he is gay.

But when Meinhold reported for duty at Moffett Field on Monday, he was turned away with a letter stating that local commanders had no authorization to put him back in uniform.

Meinhold’s attorneys returned to Hatter on Tuesday afternoon. The judge reacted angrily to the military’s position. “This is not a military dictatorship,” Hatter said. “It is not the former Soviet Socialist Republic. Here, the rule of law applies to the military . . . even to the commander-in-chief.”

In reaffirming his reinstatement order, Hatter said there was a likelihood that Meinhold would be able to prove his contention that the military’s ban on homosexuals in the armed forces violated his constitutional rights. The judge also said he would hold the Navy in contempt if it failed to reinstate Meinhold on Thursday morning and would refuse to accept any further government filings in the case.

Pentagon spokesmen said the decision to return Meinhold to his job was made late Tuesday after Navy Secretary Sean O’Keefe sent Hatter a letter outlining the basis for Meinhold’s discharge.

In the letter, O’Keefe said the Navy would take Meinhold back “on a contingency basis” while Hatter reconsidered his order. At the same time, however, O’Keefe asked Hatter to lift his preliminary injunction directing the Navy to reinstate Meinhold.

When Hatter rejected the plea, O’Keefe relented, sending word to the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles and to Navy leaders that they were to comply with Hatter’s ruling.

Meinhold’s reinstatement notwithstanding, Pentagon officials said that neither the armed services nor the office of Defense Secretary Dick Cheney are contemplating a change in policy on the mandatory discharge of homosexuals from the military. President-elect Bill Clinton is expected to lift the prohibition.

Meinhold’s case will be back Monday before Judge Hatter, who will hear arguments in the government’s motion to reverse the reinstatement order.

Meinhold could not be reached, but his attorney, Christopher L. Rudd, described the 30-year-old as “ecstatic. . . . This is what he wants to do.”

Pentagon spokesman Bob Hall said that Meinhold will be sworn back into the service after the Veterans Day holiday. He will also be awarded back pay, as specified in Hatter’s preliminary order.

Healy reported from Washington.