Eric Holder's Odd Interpretation of Civil Rights Law

In a memorandum, Obama Attorney General Eric Holder proclaimed that the Department of Justice will consider Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act as including trangedered individuals as well as those with gender identity issues (e.g. transvestites).   Holder rationalized that the federal government's approach to the issue had evolved over time.  So even though such classes were not contemplated by Congress when the law was enacted, they ought to be covered despite the plain text reading and 50 years of DOJ precedent. Or it should be affirmatively decided by the highest court in the land.

Holder invoked the logic of Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs. (1978), a Supreme Court decision which purports that statutory prohibitions often go beyond the principal evil to cover reasonably comparable evils".  A complication with relying upon this language as it focuses on acts which applies to discrimination on women and men. Holder's ukase is that it establishes new classes of Civil Rights coverage, namely for cross-dressers as well as transgendered people.  Such unilateral Administrative action was anticipated by Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James.



However, Congress did not pass the Employers Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) because of concerns in the House whether the bills prohibitions on discrimination on sexual orientation would also include gender identity. ENDA did not pass Congress, but no matter for the Obama Administration to fashion its own law.

Although this holding supposedly only extends to the Federal Government, the limited scope of the Federal Gay Marriage applicability in U.S. v. Windsor (2013) was not respected.  In addition, consider how Attorney General Holder's logic of juridical evolution could be liberally applied.

Does America still have the rule of law or the rule of men?  This is a hard question to give a straight answer.

h/t: Michael Ramirez 

A PC DOD is FUBAR

Last Thursday, President Obama posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award, to Korean War Army Chaplain Emil Kapaun for his heroic bravery.  It is sad to think so soon afterwards  that we need to consider how the Department of Defense fervently seems to battle the military chaplaincy and traditional religiosity to evangelize for faith in politcal correctness.

Recently, the U.S. Army proffered Equal Opportunity training for Pennsylvania Reserve Troops that included this helpful poster on “extremist groups”.  

The Army presentation stipulates that extremism is a complex phenomenon present in many religions when "some followers that believe that their beliefs, customs and traditions are the only 'right way' and that all others are practicing their faith the 'wrong way,' seeing and believing that their faith/religion superior to all others."

It is fascinating to see how Evangelical Christians, Orthodox Jews, Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and Catholics were lumped in with Al Quaeda (spelled incorrectly in official Army materials), the Ku Klux Klan and Hamas as dangerous extremist groups. And being leery of the spread of Sharia over secular democratic civil lawyer is also defined as a hate group "Islamophobia".

The American Family Association postulates that the Army relied upon propaganda from the Southern Poverty Law Center to label Catholics and Evangelicals as extremist because of this scriptural stances considering  homosexual relations sinful and opposing same-sex so called marriage. 

The danger of the state imposing laws for same sex marriage is that the force of government makes opposing views anathematic, even if it is a tradition that has ordered Western society for thousands of years and is deeply held spiritual beliefs.  There is the fear that non-profits and churches which dissent from the state stampede of same sex marriage may lose their tax exempt status, especially based upon charters for many charity organizations which stipulate following the societal law. 

Since current Commander in Chief President Barack Obama evolved his public position endorsing same sex marriage in May 2012, the Department of Defense has nudged military chaplains to accept and even perform same sex marriages.   Even though the federal government does not recognize same sex marriages, the first gay military wedding was held at  Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey in May 2012, in a state that has yet to approve state blessing of such nuptials.  

Pro homosexual rights types complain that the ceremony was done by clergy that recognize same sex unions and that it was never meant to be public, despite being done in public on government facilities.  Yet somehow this private affair made it on ABC News among other media sources.

In 2010, then Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen was asked about those who hold bibilical views about homosexuality and Mullen responded “Chaplain, if you can’t get in line with this policy, resign your commission.”  Chaplains were promised that the repeal of   “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would change things very little.  But that promise has not been kept, with Chaplains being prohibited from quoting certain scriptural passages or using the name of God while presiding over traditional services. 

According to Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), retired military chaplains report that is considered to be a career ending move for a military chaplain to abstain from officiating  these same sex unions.   That is why Senators Inhofe and James Wicker (R-MS) proposed the Military Religious Freedom Protection Act., which the Obama White House promised to veto while dismissed the conscience clause legislation as being “unnecessary and ill-advised.”

Lest anyone think that the PC DOD is all about hot button societal moral issues, consider the way the Obama Administration has used America’s military to advance his political agenda with little regard to national security. 

The Navy under President Obama has steamed ahead with the “Great Green Fleet” initiative to have a blend of 50% alternative and 50% conventional fuel that costs $26 a gallon or seven times the cost of conventional fuel.  Green energy proponents claim that the price will come down when the alternative energy becomes more popular.  Doesn't the Green Fleet insignia look familiar? Change we can believe in ?   Navy Secretary Ray Mabus plans to have half of the ships in the “Great Green Fleet” by 2020.  Legislative efforts to roll back this green initiative failed during the 2012 Lame Duck Session of Congress by a 62-37 margin. 

Obama Administration Navy Secretary Ray Mabus

As sequestration was being implemented, the Navy warned that it would scuttle repairs on a dozen ships due to the 2.3% cut in the rate of growth of the Federal domestic budget.  In addition, sequestration cuts were attributed for delaying dry dock work on the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in Norfolk.  The Navy is cancelling Blue Angel flyovers for the year.  But more significantly, the Air Force  was grounding 1/3rd of its ordinary flights, leaving some pilots wondering if they would have sufficient training time with their aircraft.

It is frightening to think that as we live in an increasingly dangerous world that a PC DOD is more concerned about making political points that it is about defending our nations interests.  If that is the case then it is not SNAFU but FUBAR.