A CALIFORNIAN FEDERAL JUDGE has ruled that a ban on homosexuals openly serving in the US military is unconstitutional.

The law violated the fundamental rights contained in the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

The ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy had been in place since 1993, but US District Judge Virginia Phillips granted a request for an injunction  halting the policy, which allowed soldiers to serve if their homosexuality remains unknown but suspended them if it became known.

Judge Phillips said that the controversial law did not aid the military, but instead had a “direct and deleterious effect” on the armed forces.

The Pentagon is currently conducting a review of all armed forces, and the repeal will not come until after that review is completed.

In February of this year, one of the USA’s leading military commanders advised a Senate committee that gay people should be allowed to serve in the military. A Senate hearing into the ban on homosexual personnel was told “we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens” by Admiral Mike Mullen.

President Obama had previously added his support to a repeal on the law, along with Defence Secretary Robert Gates, in March.