FEDERAL APPEALS COURT STRIKES DOWN AS DISCRIMINATORY FEDERAL DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE ACT

The U.S. government is divided into three branches, the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary.

While majority rule determines the makeup of the first two branches, the electorate does not select the federal judiciary.  This means that the judicial branch is immune from majoritarian rule.  One of its main purposes is to protect minority rights in the face of majority rule.

Today, we have another example of the integrity of the federal judiciary.  The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the right of two homosexual adults to marry and secure the same legal rights as heterosexuals when they marry.

Timothy Williams reports in The New York Times online that the court held today that the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which bars homosexual marriages, is unconstitutional.

Writes Timothy Williams:

"A federal appeals court in Manhattan ruled on Thursday that the federal statute defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman unlawfully discriminates against same-sex married couples by denying them equal federal benefits."

GREAT DAY FOR CIVIL RIGHTS - INMATES AT GUANTANAMO CAN SEEK HABEAS CORPUS FROM FEDERAL COURTS

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that inmates held at Guantanamo have constitutional rights to seek redress from federal courts. So much for the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld machiavellian scheme to hold such prisoners outside the confines of the 50 states and thus keep them from bringing their cases and grievances into federal court. But the Court ruled that Guantanamo is subject to full sovereignty of the U.S. government, and therefore prisoners held there are not deprived of the protections of the Great Writ of Habeas Corpus.