Monday, June 8, 2009

what's rational about homophobia?

the supreme court decided not to hear a case about the "don't ask, don't tell" policy of the US's military forces. it did so with the obama administration's blessing.

a quote from the AP article:" In court papers, the administration said the appeals court ruled correctly in this case when it found that 'don't ask, don't tell' is 'rationally related to the government's legitimate interest in military discipline and cohesion.'"

rationally? see our earlier blog post on how much we disagree with that.

i like the idea of democratically-elected bodies passing the laws that rid this type of discrimination from our system (and that includes gay marriage), but it bothers me that the highest courts are refusing to see that this an issue of equality pure and simple. to frame it any other way seems irrational to me.

1 comment:

Neil said...

My guess is that they would rather wait and change the policy at the executive level rather than take the risk of having the current policy validated by the Supreme Court -- which could make the policy much, much harder (politically, practically) to overturn. But that is just a guess (neither a statement for nor against) -- though I will say that the "administration's" comments on the situation are weird.