National Desk
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

WASHINGTON
PRO-GAY REPUBLICAN GROUP SUES OVER ‘DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL’
A Republican homosexual rights group filed a lawsuit yesterday seeking to overturn the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gays in the military.
The policy, put into place in 1993 during the Clinton administration, allows gays and lesbians to serve so long as they do not disclose their sexual orientation or engage in homosexual acts.
The Log Cabin Republicans sued in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles asking for an injunction that would prevent the Pentagon from enforcing the policy. The suit names America and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld as defendants.
Log Cabin members serving in the military asked the group’s leaders over the last four months to take legal action, said Marty Meekins, one of the group’s attorneys. They did not come forward because of a specific incident but out of “fear of the military finding out their sexual orientation if they are gay and lesbian,” said Mr. Meekins, who is based in Los Angeles. The suit says the policy violates a soldier’s constitutional right to due process, freedom of speech, and equal protection.
Log Cabin officials say they are encouraged by the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision to strike down a Texas law that made homosexual sex a crime.
In response to the Log Cabin suit, Pentagon spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Ellen Krenke said the military implemented “don’t ask, don’t tell” because it was mandated by federal law. The 1993 law “would need to be changed to affect the department’s policy.”
– Associated Press
SENATOR DAYTON TEMPORARILY CLOSES OFFICE, CITING SECURITY THREAT
A Democratic senator said yesterday he has closed his Washington office because a top-secret intelligence report made him fear for his staff’s safety. Federal law enforcement officials insisted there is no new intelligence indicating the Capitol complex is a target.
Senator Dayton, a Democrat of Minnesota, said his office will be closed while Congress is in recess through Election Day, with his staff working out of his Minnesota office and in Senate space off Capitol Hill.
“I take this step out of extreme, but necessary, precaution to protect the lives and safety of my Senate staff and my Minnesota constituents, who might otherwise be visiting my Senate office in the next three weeks,” said Mr. Dayton, whose office in the Russell Senate Office Building is across the street from the Capitol.
Mr. Dayton said he could not give details of the classified intelligence report, which he said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Republican of Tennessee, presented to senators at a briefing two weeks ago. Mr. Frist told reporters that he didn’t know of any other senators who had closed their Capitol Hill offices.
– Associated Press
NORTHWEST
LAVA BREAKS SURFACE AT MOUNT ST. HELENS SEATTLE – Magma that has been rising inside Mount St. Helens after weeks of earthquakes and steam eruptions finally pushed its way to the surface yesterday, forming a new lava dome just behind the existing one in the volcano’s crater.
The quakes subsided as the new lava emerged and cooled in the open air, suggesting molten rock from deep inside the Earth had found the path of least resistance by going around the old dome, said a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Wash., Jon Major.
Unlike the dramatic rivers of red-hot lava from Hawaii’s volcano, St. Helens’s extrusion of new rock was subtle and difficult to see from outside the crater. A lazy plume of steam rose slowly from the mountain for much of yesterday.
The last dome-building activity at St. Helens began in the months after its deadly May 1980 eruption and lasted six years. Layers of emerging rock gradually formed a rocky dome nearly 1,000 feet tall at the center of the crater floor. The top of the new dome is almost level with the old one just to the north.
The mountain had been shaking since September 23, with periods of sharp jolts – up to magnitude 3.3 – occurring as often as four times a minute at the height of seismic activity.
– Associated Press