Call me cynical, but in the deliberate absence of federal support for equal marriage in the U.S., the repeal of DADT amounts to little more than a PR paving stone in the inevitable road from an exhausted 'stop-loss' policy to a full-on - and politically explosive for both parties - introduction of the military draft required to continue fighting a two front war indefinitely. It would seem that a substantial improvement in America's LGBT rights at the federal level may not have been a priority after all. I'm often wrong though...
It is not a gay rights challenge for The Administration. In defense of Obama and the DOJ they are doing what is required of them...and that is to defend the law and position of the Government as written.
Very true. The Executive and Judicial branches of the government are required to enforce and intemperate the laws as written by the Legislative branch. They, especially the Executive branch, have no choice in which laws they enforce or defend. If they could choose, then the entire system could potentially be ignored.
In the United Kingdom, as a result of power struggle between parliament and the king, ending in the king's execution, parliament has supremacy over the courts, which means if the legislation was passed, then the court must enforce it. But this is not the case in the United States. In the case Marbury v. Madison (1803), the United States Supreme Court established the landmark principle of "judicial review" of primary legislation, which means if a court with jurisdiction over the law of a state or the federal laws says that a piece of legislation is in violation of the state or federal constitution or is contradicting another law, then the constitution must stand and the particular piece of law to be deleted or "quashed". Therefore, in this case, you have to look at whether the law is in violation of the Constitution. In many countries, the constitutional clauses that covers personal rights and freedoms normally gets interpreted to mean that any laws defining marriage as between a man and woman is based on prejudice and the legislation was passed with malicious intent to discriminate a person based on sexual orientation. However, I doubt that this interpretation is going to be made in the current US supreme court as it is stacked 5-4 conservatives vs liberals. Another related issue is the death penalty. In most countries constitutions, there is a clause against cruel and unusual punishment. And in most countries the courts interpret this to mean that the death penalty is cruel and unusual and is therefore banned. But in the US, it seems that the interpretation of cruel/unusual only covers certain methods of execution, but not the killing itself.
I just OK'd your FR. I'll try sending you a PM. -------- Nope: "Message Sending Error Sorry MIJ VI, you do not have permission to send that message. You can send messages to Advisors, Experts, Moderators and Administrators but not to Regular Members or Full Members. Please post in Ask The Mods if you need any help." Oh Marrtinnnn.......
Hmm that is strange isnt it. I dont know what to do then. Just post whatever message you want to send on my wall i guess. Surely, the wall post is going to work?
k so click "view conversation" it automatically tabulates whatever we say on each others walls into a conversation style view. .... what a mouthful.
