that allowing such instances would require the military to condone that behavior and that the root of the military's policy was "Good order, discipline and order, and unit cohesion." In November 1993, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals reversed the District Court decision and found in Steffan's favor. The court ordered the Navy to commission the dismissed Steffan as a Navy officer and grant him his Naval Academy diploma. The court said that the military's new policy on military service by open gays and lesbians, "Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT), was not under review, yet the court held that the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment did not permit the Government to remove members of the armed services merely because they say they are homosexuals, a holding that directly contradicted DADT. In the decision in the case, now called Steffan v. Aspin, Judge Abner J. Mikva wrote: The decision was the second time a Federal appeals court had ruled that as a matter of constitutional law, the military could not exclude someone on the basis of sexual orientation. Government attorneys debated how to proceed, given the narrowness of the decision and uncertainty about its application to the military's new DADT policy, which had replaced the rules under which Steffan had been discharged. The government decided to appeal on technical grounds. Since the Court of Appeals had ordered that Steffan be awarded his commission, they proposed to argue that, since only the President can award a commission with the consent of the Senate, the court's order violated the principle of separation of powers. In January 1994, however, the Appeals Court suspended the panel's order in Steffan's favor and rejected the government's request that it limit its review to the separation of powers question and refrain from considering the policy's constitutionality. The case was argued before the full Court of Appeals on May 11, 1994. In August 1994, Steffan began a clerkship with a Federal judge in New Jersey. The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit handed down a 7–3 decision on Nov. 22, 1994. The majority seven justices, all appointed by Presidents Reagan or Bush, found for the government. Three judges appointed by Presidents Carter or Clinton dissented. Writing for the majority, Judge Laurence H. Silberman found Steffan's position "more clever than real" and said that "Steffan's claim that the Government cannot rationally infer that one who