BOISE (AP) - A gay rights group wants a federal court in Idaho to block the U.S. Air Force from discharging an aviator under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law that bars openly gay and lesbian military members from service.

Servicemembers Legal Defense Network filed its lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in Boise, asking for a temporary restraining order to stop the Air Force from discharging Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach until a full hearing can be scheduled. It also wants the law declared unconstitutional.

Fehrenbach, a 19-year military member who has been decorated for his combat valor in Iraq, disclosed he was gay in 2008 as he defended himself against allegations investigated by the Boise Police Department that he raped another man. Fehrenbach said he had sex with the man, but it was consensual.

He was cleared of the rape allegations, including by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, which found them to be without merit, according to court documents filed Wednesday.

But he still faces ouster from the military.

Servicemembers Legal Defense Network indicated it filed its lawsuit because it believes Fehrenbach’s discharge is imminent, following the recent review of his case by officials on the Air Force Personnel Board.

“Lt. Col. Fehrenbach could be discharged within days,” the Washington, D.C.-based group said.

For two years now, Fehrenbach said he has been stuck at a desk, rather than being allowed to deploy as a weapons systems officer in an F-15E jet to combat theaters in Iraq or Afghanistan.

“I have been waiting more than two years for the Air Force to do the right thing by letting me continue to proudly serve my country,” Fehrenbach said in a statement. “To say that I’m disappointed with where things stand would be a monumental understatement. I’m ready, willing, and able to deploy tomorrow, but I’m barred from deployment, because of this unjust, discriminatory law.”

The policy prohibits the military from asking about the sexual orientation of service members but requires discharge of those who acknowledge being gay or are discovered to be engaging in homosexual activity.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted May 27 for repeal, and the Senate is expected to take up the issue this summer.

In July, lawyers for a GOP gay rights organization, the Log Cabin Republicans, asked a federal judge in California during a two-week trial to issue an injunction halting the military’s ban on openly gay members.

Government lawyers urged the judge to let lawmakers decide.

A decision is pending, though Judge Virginia A. Phillips may wait to see if Congress acts.

Fehrenbach fears he’ll be discharged before any changes.

For instance, an openly gay soldier was honorably discharged from the New York Army National Guard on July 22 under don’t ask, don’t tell.

“If discharged, Lt. Col. Fehrenbach will lose his job, income, right to pension (since he is being discharged approximately one year short of the twenty year mark), health and life insurance, and all other benefits associated with being an Air Force officer,” according to court documents filed Wednesday.

He “will be terminated from a career which is central to his life and identity, and has been for nearly nineteen years,” the documents said.

Attempts to leave an after-hours phone message for the U.S. Department of Defense were unsuccessful and an e-mail seeking comment from the agency wasn’t immediately returned.

A press official at the Mountain Home Air Force Base also didn’t answer a phone call from The Associated Press seeking a comment late Wednesday.

Fehrenbach is stationed at the facility, about 50 miles east of Boise, where he is assistant director of operations for the 366th Operations Support Squadron.

WEST POINT (AP) - A lesbian cadet asked to resign from the U.S. Military Academy because she said she can no longer lie about her sexuality and was troubled by the anti-gay attitudes of some around her.

Katherine Miller of Findlay, Ohio, also said she wants to fight for repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, a subject she was studying and writing about as a sociology major at West Point.

“I intend for my resignation to offer a concrete example of the consequences of a failed law and social policy,” she wrote in her resignation letter on Monday, referring to the law against gays serving openly in the military.

Miller wrote proudly of her accomplishments as a student, athlete and soldier and said that she had not been pressured by anyone to resign. But she wrote of being “coerced into ignoring derogatory comments towards homosexuals for fear of being alienated for my viewpoint” and that she “endured sexual harassment for fear of being accused as a lesbian.”

Miller said by e-mail that she wasn’t immediately available to speak with The Associated Press on Thursday, but she confirmed the resignation letter.

In the letter, she said she fabricated a heterosexual dating history to share with any fellow cadets who asked.

“In short, I have lied to my classmates and compromised my integrity and identity by adhering to existing military policy,” she said.

Ranked ninth in the class of more than 1,100 cadets about to start their third year, Miller’s resignation letter was dated a week before she would be required to sign a commitment to finish her final two years and serve five years in the military.

Jim Fox, a West Point spokesman, said Miller will remain at the academy while her request is reviewed. That takes about a week, he said.

Miller “is in good standing and has done very well academically, militarily and physically while at the academy,” Fox said Thursday. Cadets may withdraw at any point in their first two years without owing the government service or compensation for the education and benefits they’ve received.

Miller has been admitted to Yale University, starting in September.

She said she will work through her studies and political activism to win repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law and would apply to return to West Point in the 2011-2012 academic year if that happens soon enough.

WILLIAMSVILLE (AP) - A professor who was fired from a small private college says he was discriminated against for being heterosexual, Hungarian and a man; that his bosses favored gay colleagues known as the Merry Men; and that he was let go in retaliation for complaining to the state.

The college says he was simply unqualified and that a state investigation that found probable cause this month to support his allegations was “poor and incomplete.”

Dr. Csaba Marosan, 53, is awaiting his day in court against Trocaire College in Buffalo, a two-year school founded by the Sisters of Mercy.

Marosan said the Rev. Robert Mock, associate dean of academic affairs, and Vice President Thomas Mitchell targeted him for disciplinary action and then terminated him.

The school says Marosan’s contract was not renewed because his medical degree did not meet an accrediting board’s requirements and there were issues with his teaching style.

But the Human Rights investigators found that evidence supported Marosan’s allegations that he was terminated in retaliation for filing a discrimination complaint.

Marosan, who was hired in 2000, filed an initial complaint in April 2009, saying administrators had made comments about his Hungarian accent and customs, passed him over for promotions in favor of younger, less qualified employees and treated him less favorably than women on the staff. After being let go in December, he amended the complaint in April to add the allegations of discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Two staffers who were part of the group known as the Merry Men were made science department directors “even though they had less experience and education than anyone else in the department,” Marosan’s complaint said.

He said he did not mention the preferential treatment of homosexuals from the start because he did not want to be perceived as homophobic.

Grasso said Marosan filed his initial complaint shortly after being counseled following student complaints that he had used sexually explicit language in class.

The state’s findings noted at least one of the students had been coached by Mock into complaining. There was no finding of sexual harassment against Marosan, the report and school said.

Grasso called the division’s investigation “poor and incomplete.”

Marosan, who holds a medical degree from Semmelweis University and is not licensed to practice in the United States, said he plans to air his concerns about Trocaire to the U.S. Education Department. In the meantime, he is awaiting the scheduling of a public hearing before an administrative law judge, the next step following the Human Rights Division’s probable cause finding.

He said he wants changes at the school and to ensure that faculty members who have defended him are not hurt professionally by their support.