June 8 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court refused to question the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that prohibits openly gay people from serving in the military, turning away a constitutional challenge to the ban.

The rebuff spares President Barack Obama’s administration from the awkward task of mounting a legal defense for a policy the president says should be repealed. In urging the Supreme Court not to hear the appeal, administration lawyers said a lower court was correct to uphold the policy.

The high court case stemmed from a lawsuit by 12 former service members who were discharged because of their sexual orientation. A federal appeals court in Boston threw out the suit, disagreeing with a San Francisco-based appeals court that had let a similar suit go forward.

One of the 12, James E. Pietrangelo II, asked the Supreme Court to hear arguments in the case. Most of the rest of the group joined a brief asking the justices to defer reviewing the policy while the administration and lawmakers revisit it.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that that consenting adults have a right to engage in private homosexual conduct, striking down bans on sodomy in Texas and 12 other states.

The case is Pietrangelo v. Gates, 08-824.

To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 8, 2009 10:18 EDT