Gay Midshipman Won’t Take Case to High Court

Joseph C. Steffan, a former Annapolis midshipman who is gay, is ending his six-year court battle to get a Naval Academy diploma and ensign’s commission and will not take the dispute to the Supreme Court, he said Tuesday.

The decision postpones for at least a year any review by the Supreme Court of the constitutionality of the military services’ longstanding policy of discharging gays and lesbians in most cases.

In a related development Tuesday, however, a federal appeals court in New York City ordered the immediate speed-up of a new constitutional challenge to the ban brought by six gay and lesbian service members. This case tests the Clinton Administration’s version--the so-called “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue” policy adopted by the Pentagon and written into law by Congress.

Under the Clinton ban, individuals who do not disclose gay or lesbian sexual preferences can remain on duty. If they say they are a homosexual, however, they can be discharged unless they prove they are not.

The appeals court ordered a federal judge in Brooklyn, N.Y., to make a decision by March 31.

The military remains free, however, to enforce the Administration policy against other gays and lesbians now on duty. The timetable set by the appeals court means that the case could reach the Supreme Court later this year or early next.

Steffan said he and his lawyers had decided that, as a matter of legal strategy, his case was not the right one and now was not the right time to draw the Supreme Court into a constitutional review of the issue.