August 12 Justice, the Fulcrum of Love, and the Case of Margaret Witt

Services are held at 9:15 & 11:00 a.m. each Sunday. Air Force Major Margaret Witt’s long legal challenge to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is well-known both for creating and riding the wave of popular sentiment that enabled the gay rights revolution in America over the past decade. My challenge, as a journalist working to help Major Witt tell her story, was to better discover and explain what really happened in this powerful love story masquerading as a legal thriller. The story of the long and formidable legal challenge was deep, and complex, and shrouded in political secrecy. With a quiet assist from Barack Obama, the Witt case ultimately and fatefully tipped the balance against government intrusion into sexual privacy, and for according dignity, respect and legal protection for those seeking sexual and gender identity freedom and expression.

Tim Connor is a national award-winning journalist/photographer and activist based in Spokane. He is perhaps best known for his multi-year investigations and Congressional testimony into wide-reaching safety and environmental hazards at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, and for his national award winning on-line and broadcast investigation into the fraudulent underpinnings of Spokane’s River Park Square public/private partnership. His fourth book (with Margaret Witt) Tell: Love, Defiance and the Military Trial at the Tipping Point for Gay Rights, was published in October.