The Death of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?”
The bastions of Constitutional justice are finding time and again that current policies of the United States are in violation of the country’s gay and lesbian citizens’ rights.
First, Judge Walker Vaughn ruled that forbidding the marriage of gay couples was a violation of the due process of clause of the Constitution. Now, yesterday, US District Judge Virginia Phillips determined that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was a violation of the First Amendment rights of gay and lesbian soldiers.
Immediate reaction came from Washington declaring the matter was an issue for Congress, but isn’t this why we have separate executive, legislative and judicial branches of our government? To act as checks and balances to one another and to guarantee no branch oversteps its just place and proper powers and that the rights of the American populace are preserved. Congress doesn’t have the power to violate the civil rights of individuals, no matter how powerful that Congress may be and finally, the Halls of Justice are showing it to them.
