Don't Ask, Don't TCS
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What a disconcerting Tech Central Station piece today by Michael Rosen decrying the challenges to the bigoted Solomon Amendments that threaten the withholding of all federal funding to all units of a university if even just one of its division (i.e., its law school) bars military recruiters from using its facilities.
When Rosen isn’t busy calling the law schools’ actions a “crime” that “segregate” students and exhibit “intolerance” (how Orwellian is that?), or mocking the Third Circuit judge’s name, he is making just about every legal error one could imagine in this fact pattern (e.g., he mistaken believes that the Spending Clause always trumps the First Amendment — um, no).
Meanwhile, nowhere, absolutely nowhere, does Rosen bother to explain exactly why the Solomon Amendment should be supported, except for some limp-wristed goose-stepping about how it’s wrong to hassle the federal government with pesky complaints about, inter alia, nuisances such as anti-gay bigotry and forced recital of the Pledge of Allegiance. Rosen’s worldview regarding government appears to be: “My Big Brother can beat up your Founding Father.”
And this guy’s on TCS? Now there’s a situation where “don’t ask, don’t tell” might be a good policy. A libertarian this guy ain’t.
Others are blogging fast and furious about Rumsfeld v. FAIR, so I won’t reinvent the wheel. Just one parting question for Mr. Rosen, who writes:
UPDATE: Slate has a good primer on both the history of Solomon and the current litigation posture, and revisits the theme I blogged about here: that the anti-gay Solomon Amendments cannot be reconciled with the equally anti-gay case Boy Scouts v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640 (2000). One or the other has to go.
Related Posts:
Anti-Gay Judge: No Yalies Need Apply After Recruiter Ban
The Ghost of Dale Continues to Haunt
When Rosen isn’t busy calling the law schools’ actions a “crime” that “segregate” students and exhibit “intolerance” (how Orwellian is that?), or mocking the Third Circuit judge’s name, he is making just about every legal error one could imagine in this fact pattern (e.g., he mistaken believes that the Spending Clause always trumps the First Amendment — um, no).
Meanwhile, nowhere, absolutely nowhere, does Rosen bother to explain exactly why the Solomon Amendment should be supported, except for some limp-wristed goose-stepping about how it’s wrong to hassle the federal government with pesky complaints about, inter alia, nuisances such as anti-gay bigotry and forced recital of the Pledge of Allegiance. Rosen’s worldview regarding government appears to be: “My Big Brother can beat up your Founding Father.”
And this guy’s on TCS? Now there’s a situation where “don’t ask, don’t tell” might be a good policy. A libertarian this guy ain’t.
Others are blogging fast and furious about Rumsfeld v. FAIR, so I won’t reinvent the wheel. Just one parting question for Mr. Rosen, who writes:
[T]he schools are undermining their own efforts to reform the military's Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell policy while seeming disdainful of servicemembers sacrificing their lives abroad.And what exactly are those heroic servicemembers (like this one) sacrificing their lives abroad for? I would certainly hope that it’s not for the blind “government knows best” philosophy and jurisprudence Rosen seems to embrace.
UPDATE: Slate has a good primer on both the history of Solomon and the current litigation posture, and revisits the theme I blogged about here: that the anti-gay Solomon Amendments cannot be reconciled with the equally anti-gay case Boy Scouts v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640 (2000). One or the other has to go.
Related Posts:
Anti-Gay Judge: No Yalies Need Apply After Recruiter Ban
The Ghost of Dale Continues to Haunt
Posted by KipEsquire on
6 May 2005
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