Court Opinion

ID: 9852425
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:30:13.654305+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:27.649572
License: Public Domain

KLEINFELD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc, joined by BEA, Circuit Judge:
I reach the same conclusion as Judge O’Scannlain, that we ought to rehear this case en banc and affirm. The district court was correct in dismissing Major Witt’s challenge for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. I write separately because that conclusion is compelling even taking the law more favorably to the panel’s view than Judge O’Scannlain would.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the line of authority beginning with Gris-wold v. Connecticut1 and resting at present with Lawrence v. Texas2 establishes a broad constitutional right, enforceable in civil as well as criminal proceedings, to liberty among consenting adults to have whatever sort of sexual contact they choose.3 And suppose further, for the sake of argument, that the burden on the government to justify interference with this constitutional right to sexual liberty is intermediate or strict scrutiny, rather than scrutiny to determine whether the government restraint has a rational basis.4 I do not suggest that either of these propositions is or should be true or false, but use them as hypothetical bases for discussing the present case.
Even under such a broad and aggressive interpretation of Lawrence> the panel would still be mistaken. The reason why is that the general constitutional right to sexual liberty competes against the especially high level of deference we are required to extend to Congress and the President regarding military affairs, and few liberties prevail against that deference. As explained below, I do not think the panel’s decision can stand unless Goldman v. Weinberger falls.5
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” or “DADT” as the panel calls it, is not a policy adopted by the military. It is among the major policy initiatives during the first two years of the Clinton Administration. New laws passed by Congress receive such extensive scrutiny by individual legislators, witnesses military and otherwise testifying at hearings, journalists, and the general public as this one.6 No doubt sex triggers more public attention than, say, improvements to air*1277ports. At the end of the extensive public controversy, Congress passed and the President signed a law embodying the policy challenged in this lawsuit, 10 U.S.C. § 654, promulgated November 13, 1993.7
Congress made fifteen findings explaining the reasons for the law. Among them are that “[s]uccess in combat requires military units that are characterized by high morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion,”8 that “military society is characterized by ... numerous restrictions on personal behavior, that would not be acceptable in civilian society,”9 that military standards “regulate a member’s life for 24 hours each day,”10 that living conditions are sometimes “characterized by forced intimacy with little or no privacy,” 11 and that “presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.”12 The statute requires separation (subject to numerous exceptions) from the armed forces of persons who have engaged in homosexual acts or declared their homosexuality.13
It is not our business to decide whether Congress and the President were correct or mistaken in their judgment about homosexuality and military effectiveness. I intimate no view of my own. Many homosexuals have been excellent soldiers, as is evidently the case with Major Witt, and some militaries seem to function fine with homosexuals in the ranks. On the other hand, further injecting passions of love and jealousy into the emotional maelstrom of armed nineteen year olds who may soon die for their country may reasonably be seen by Congress and the President as too risky, especially when combined with minority sexual orientations.
I cannot tell just what the panel intends for the district court to do on remand. The panel remanded the case to the district court to determine whether, under a heightened level of scrutiny, application of this law to Major Witt “significantly furthers the government’s interest.”14 Congress and the President concluded that it does, because the rule is general, for the entire military. The panel cannot mean that the district court should repeat the extensive congressional hearings that preceded adoption of the law, to determine whether the court agrees with the policy adopted. But the panel does not say what sort of evidence the district court is supposed to consider, or precisely what factual question the evidence is supposed to answer.
Do model officers such as Major Witt get an exception to the rule? Popular officers? Officers whose units appear to have suffered no decline in morale and unit cohesion? The panel does not justify making any of these things matter. Suppose all facts elicited for all these questions and all other particularized questions about Major Witt come out in her favor. She could be assigned to a different unit and a different location, perhaps in a war zone, tomorrow,15 or her personal relationships *1278and the relationships and feelings within her unit could change. Or even if none of those things happen, other homosexuals in the unit, either less popular or less capable than Major Witt, may become envious that she has more sexual liberty than they do, generating an attitude particularly corrosive to discipline. Congress and the President established a rule of general applicability, and morale probably requires that people be treated alike. As the only other circuit to have considered this issue post-Lawrence concluded, “[ejvery as-applied challenge brought by a member of the armed forces against the Act, implicates this interest [in morale and unit cohesion].” 16 In the Goldman case discussed below, Justice Stevens’s concurring opinion expressly rejected individualized balancing of the constitutionally protected interest against the military interest, such as the panel seems to require, because “we must test validity of the ... rule not merely as it applies to Captain Goldman but also as it applies to all service personnel....” 17
The panel, relying on civilian cases of criminal prosecution for homosexual conduct, Lawrence v. Texas,18 and forced medication of a criminal defendant, Sell v. United States,19 gives mere lip service to the military aspect of the case.
Regardless of what liberties the Constitution guarantees for civilians, the military context changes the analysis. As the Court held in Rostker v. Goldberg, “the tests and limitations to be applied may differ because of the military context.”20 In Rostker, the Supreme Court rejected a due process challenge to drafting men but not women, justifying its holding on the ground that “judicial deference ... is at its apogee when legislative action under the congressional authority to raise and support armies and make rules and regulations for their governance is challenged.”21 Congress appears to have shaped a finding in the statute before us to fit the Rostker language, the finding that “the Constitution of the United States commits exclusively to the Congress the powers to raise and support armies ... and make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.”22
Quite a few constitutional rights do not apply to the military as they do in civilian life. For example, though mandatory conscription is not currently in force, men but not women must register for the draft, and an equal protection challenge may be ruled out by Rostker v. Goldberg,23 When men are drafted, they are not free to decline the employment on Thirteenth Amendment grounds, as civilians are.24 And soldiers may be vigorously prosecuted for desertion, though civilians are generally free to leave an employment.25 If a new Secretary in, say, the Department of Education issued an order that all employees *1279must stand and salute when a higher ranking employee enters the room, no doubt a First Amendment challenge would succeed, perhaps with an a fortiori reference to the proposition that even a child need not salute the flag in school during wartime,26 yet it is hard to imagine a soldier defeating an insubordination charge on the ground that he had a First Amendment right to express his true feeling of disrespect and not make a false show of respect for a superior officer who entered the room.27
This case should be treated as an a fortiori application of the Supreme Court’s holding in Goldman v. Weinberger,28 An Orthodox Jewish rabbi serving as a clinical psychologist in a base hospital was recommended for non-retention because he wore a yarmulke (5 1/2" circle of dark cloth) on his head on duty. The right to free exercise of religion is certainly as protected by the Constitution as whatever right to sexual liberty Lawrence may create, and the military headgear policy was merely a regulation, not a statute, yet the Court rejected Captain Goldman’s Free Exercise challenge to application of the rule. The Court relied on its well established general principle that “ ‘the military is, by necessity, a specialized society separate from civilian society,’ ”29 and “ ‘must insist on a respect for duty and a discipline without counterpart in civilian life.’ ”30 The Court went so far as to say that “[t]he essence of military service ‘is the subordination of the desires and interests of the individual to the needs of the service,’ ”31 while defining the service’s “needs” to embrace pretty much whatever the military thought desirable to promote “discipline” and “uniformity.”32
Congress picked up the language from Goldman in its findings in the statute before us, that “the armed forces ... exist as a specialized society ... characterized by ... numerous restrictions on personal behavior, that would not be acceptable in civilian society.”33 It is more difficult to imagine threats to order and discipline from the wearing of a yarmulke by a clinical psychologist in an on-shore base hospital, than from the emotions stirred up by sexual conduct, and free exercise of religion is among the most fundamental constitutional rights, yet religion gives way to the military interest in discipline and uniformity. If a man does not have a constitutional right to wear an unobtrusive 5" circle of dark cloth on his head as his religion requires, because of the threat to discipline and uniformity, it is hard to see how an individual could nevertheless be entitled to practice or declare a sexual orientation that the military, Congress, and the President have concluded endangers military effectiveness.
Major Witt has a legitimate and important interest in associating and enjoying sexual relationships with those whom she chooses, as she chooses. Yet even these sorts of human relationships, among the *1280most private and important, are subject to strict military regulation. For example, fraternization between officers and enlisted persons is a military offense.34 Laws against adultery have generally fallen into desuetude for civilians, but are routinely enforced by the military.35 If a captain and a corporal fall in love, or if a soldier has sexual intercourse with another soldier’s spouse, the threat to military discipline and unit cohesion is serious regardless of the sexes of the participants. Our soldiers make great sacrifices for our country. At the very least, they sacrifice much of their liberty.36 I am unable to see, under Rostker and Goldman, how Major Witt’s liberty under Lawrence can trump the decision Congress and the President made to limit that liberty in the military.

. 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965).

. 539 U.S. 558, 123 S.Ct. 2472, 156 L.Ed.2d 508 (2003).

. Compare Reliable Consultants, Inc. v. Earle, 517 F.3d 738 (5th Cir.2008) (finding the state’s interest in morality provided an "constitutionally insufficient” basis to uphold a law banning the advertising and distribution of sex toys) with Williams v. Morgan, 478 F.3d 1316 (11th Cir.2007) (finding the state’s interest in morality provided a sufficient basis to uphold a law banning the sale of sex toys).

. Compare Cook v. Gates, 528 F.3d 42 (1st Cir.2008); United States v. Marcum, 60 M.J. 198 (U.S.A.F.2004) (applying "heightened scrutiny” or "searching constitutional inquiry”) with Seegmiller v. Laverkin City, 528 F.3d 762, 770-71 (10th Cir.2008); Williams v. Att’y Gen. of Ala., 378 F.3d 1232, 1235-43 (11th Cir.2004) (applying rational basis review).

. 475 U.S. 503, 106 S.Ct. 1310, 89 L.Ed.2d 478 (1986). Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., — U.S. -, 129 S.Ct. 365, 376-77, 172 L.Ed.2d 249 (2008), recently reminded us that Goldman requires "great deference to the professional judgment of military authorities concerning the relative importance of a particular military interest.”

. See Cook v. Gates, 528 F.3d 42, 58-60 (1st Cir.2008) (detailing the "exhaustive” consideration given the policy).

. Pub.L. 103-160, § 571(a), 107 Stat. 1547, 1670-73 (1993).

. 10 U.S.C. § 654(a)(6) (2006).

. 10 U.S.C. § 654(a)(8)(B) (2006).

. 10 U.S.C. § 654(a)(9) (2006).

. 10 U.S.C. § 654(a)(12) (2006).

. 10 U.S.C. § 654(a)(15) (2006).

. 10 U.S.C. § 654(b) (2006).

. Witt v. Dep’t of the Air Force, 527 F.3d 806, 821 (9th Cir.2008).

. Cf. 10 U.S.C. § 654(a)(l 1) (2006).

. Cook v. Gates, 528 F.3d 42, 60 (1st Cir.2008).

. Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U.S. 503, 512, 106 S.Ct. 1310, 89 L.Ed.2d 478 (1986) (Stevens, J. concurring).

. 539 U.S. 558, 123 S.Ct. 2472, 156 L.Ed.2d 508 (2003).

. 539 U.S. 166, 123 S.Ct. 2174, 156 L.Ed.2d 197 (2003).

. 453 U.S. 57, 67, 101 S.Ct. 2646, 69 L.Ed.2d 478 (1981).

. Id. at 70, 101 S.Ct. 2646.

. 10 U.S.C. § 654(a)(1) (2006).

. 453 U.S. 57, 101 S.Ct. 2646, 69 L.Ed.2d 478 (1981).

. Arver v. United States (Selective Draft Law Cases), 245 U.S. 366, 390, 38 S.Ct. 159, 62 L.Ed. 349 (1918).

. 10 U.S.C. § 885 (2006).

. W. Va. Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 87 L.Ed. 1628 (1943).

. See, e.g., U.S. Army Field Manual 22-5 (1986). Cf. 10 U.S.C. §§ 888, 889, 892 (2006).

. 475 U.S. 503, 106 S.Ct. 1310, 89 L.Ed.2d 478 (1986).

. Id. at 506, 106 S.Ct. 1310 (quoting Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 743, 94 S.Ct. 2547, 41 L.Ed.2d 439 (1974)).

. Id. at 507, 106 S.Ct. 1310 (quoting Schlesinger v. Councilman, 420 U.S. 738, 757, 95 S.Ct. 1300, 43 L.Ed.2d 591 (1975)).

. Id. (quoting Orloff v. Willoughby, 345 U.S. 83, 92, 73 S.Ct. 534, 97 L.Ed. 842 (1953)).

. Id. at 508-10, 106 S.Ct. 1310.

. 10 U.S.C. § 654(a)(8)(A)-(B) (2006).

. 10 U.S.C. § 892 (2006); U.S. Army Reg. 600-20, at 4-16 (Mar. 18, 2008).

. The highest military court has dealt with 5 such cases thus far in 2008. United States v. Bright, 66 M.J. 359 (U.S.A.F.2008); United States v. Bragg, 66 M.J. 325 (U.S.A.F.2008); United States v. Dacus, 66 M.J. 235 (U.S.A.F.2008); United States v. Brooks, 66 M.J. 221 (U.S.A.F.2008); United States v. Wilson, 66 M.J. 39 (U.S.A.F.2008).

. 10 U.S.C. § 654(a)(5) (2006).