Well actually, they are deciding to overturn a law, but stay with me. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (Myyyyyyyy favorite court of appeals :)) decided that the “don’t ask, don’t tell policy” of the military is unlawful and it issued an injunction that it be stopped immediately. Now whether or not you are pro or anti “don’t ask, don’t tell” I don’t particularly care, and neither does the majority of Americans at least in the sense of what they want fixed in this country. No, what this article is about is the fact that the courts massively overstepped their bounds.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell isn’t some random policy that the military adopted because it felt like it. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is the law. Made by Congress, and signed into law. It wasn’t some ruling by some judge somewhere. Not some decision made by a Secretary of Defense or Four Star General. It’s a law that was made by the U.S. Congress and put into practice by the President of the United States of America. The 9th Circuit Appeals court does not have the authority to decide that this law is null and void, as much as they’d like to.
Through this injunction the court is basically trying pass a new law that overrides the old, “don’t ask, don’t tell”, law, because, in reality, that is what is going to have to happen to get “don’t ask, don’t tell” to go away. Congress will have to draft a new law and the President will have to sign it, and the military will have to comply with it. The only time the courts get to weigh in on the matter is if the law goes before the Supreme Court and they determine that the law is in violation of the Constitution…which I wouldn’t put it past the Supreme Court since they can make anything they damn well please be in violation with the Constitution, given the right argument.
The hilarious thing about all this is that the Justice Department, under President Obama, is having to come to bat against the Court of Appeals because “don’t ask, don’t tell” is the law. This is legen…wait for it…DARY! Legendary folks. Not only does Obama have to defend this law, but he also doesn’t want the law going down this way. And he’s right not to want a sudden overnight injunction for compliance. It would cost billions. No, he wants things done right. The way they should be. By getting Congress to make a new law and getting him to sign it, and this is for several reasons.
1. It gives them time to actually plan this thing out. This will be a major policy shift for the military and could mean a lot of drastic measures as to personnel handling, not to mention potential changes to housing and facilities to boot.
2. It gives them time to actually get the money together to do this thing, and since Congress never got a budget together before going on holiday (lazy bastards) they can get this money into next years budget.
3. Finally, it gives Obama the sound byte that he signed the Bill that killed “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
I’m looking forward to watching the developments in this case.
