Wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a statement, joined by Justices Breyer and Kavanaugh, quoted in "Supreme Court Won’t Hear Case on Limiting Military Draft to Men/The justices had been asked to decide whether one of the last sex-based distinctions in federal law should survive now that women can serve in combat" (NYT).
It was a cert. denial, and the rest of the Justices had nothing to say.
The requirement is one of the last sex-based distinctions in federal law, one that challengers say cannot be justified now that women are allowed to serve in every role in the military, including ground combat. Unlike men, though, they are not required to register with the Selective Service System, the government agency that maintains a database of Americans who would be eligible for the draft were it reinstated.
It's good to leave this to Congress. We don't currently have a draft, but if we ever did, it would be an emergency, and the need to judge masses of people crudely, by their physical abilities, would matter. There is an important government interest that is substantially related to the distinction between the sexes. Of course, registering for the draft is a different matter, and treating young men and women the same in this theater of patriotism has some meaning. Let Congress grapple with that meaning and consider abandoning registration altogether.
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5 comments:
Joe writes:
When I turned 18 way back in the Stone Age, I registered for the draft. It turns out that I am one of those 'between wars' kind of guys and was never in any danger of being drafted.
But I am getting tired of hearing all of the 'I am woman' feminists saying that women should be able to fly military planes and helicopters and be generals and admirals, and yet be exempt from actual combat.
Women can die just as easily as men. Men in this country have been fighting and dying for a long time now.
How about we make the military a women-only affair...give men a break for the next couple of hundred years to even things out?
Maybe after a few thousand women come home in body bags our politicians will quit fighting idiotic Middle-East wars that only benefit massive beauracracies and corporations.
You're forgetting that women are essential for repopulating Earth.
Charles writes:
Men are penalized for not registering for the Draft and as women can be and are in every job in the armed forces there shoduol be absolutely no difference gioven to sex. Women are given the privileges of the combat arms, promotions are the biggest, but none of the responsibilities when in an emergency we will need to swiftly expand the forces. That is a double standard that should not stand as it is sexist to a high degree.
Congress has mulled this for over 20 years with no resolution. The court takes what they want but this just shows that when it comes down to the nails and tacks the Supreme Court does not think Women are equal to men. They think women need to be protected more than men and that means ALL of their equality jurisprudence is not about equality, where we treat all as having the same privileges and responsibility under the law.
David writes:
"While the timing for the -male draft registration review is wrong, and so it's good to have been denied; the sole justification given previously by the Supreme Court, for having an all male draft registration system was "front line combat" and mass mobilization for it. There is no "front line" anymore. More likely, after the worlds first artificial intelligence war was just waged (against Hamas), a mass mobilization of computer operators will be needed in the next war. In that case, mass mobilization of females may be needed more than men. Even in the 9/11 wars, females have been involved in all aspects, making the current -male draft registration system unjustifiable and obsolete.
"The male draft registration system is proof that there are only two sexes in America: male and victim."
JPS writes:
n response to Joe’s modest proposal to make the military a women-only affair, and give men a break, you write,
"You're forgetting that women are essential for repopulating Earth.”
This is the only defense I still see for registering men and not women. From a perspective of societal survival, rather than of individual rights, sending women to fight and die is bad strategy. But who in a position of political power (for the purpose of this discussion, that includes Generals and Admirals) is going to say that, knowing the outcry that would follow? Cue lots of renewed talk about The Handmaid’s Tale.
I have seen before the argument that differential treatment cannot be justified now that women can be assigned to combat positions. Interestingly, in his dissent to Rostker v. Goldberg, Justice White wrote, “I assume what has not been challenged in this case – that excluding women from combat positions does not offend the Constitution.” He felt the Selective Service Act should apply to women as well as to men, and Justice Marshall argued separately that the disparity violated the Equal Protection clause, yet neither mentioned any prospect of assigning women to combat duties. So the question of combat eligibility was considered completely separate by those justices who argued that Selective Service should apply to men and women equally.
Personally, I’m for repealing draft registration. I don’t believe a draft is justified unless our national survival hangs in the balance. And if it does, I have just enough faith remaining in this country to believe we’d find the volunteers we need. If we couldn’t, we might just be doomed anyway, draft or no draft.
Will writes:
I have discussed this issue with my Army Officer son. There are some practicable problems with implementing a sex neutral draft.
First, the average woman is not strong enough, and cannot be trained to be strong enough, to carry a standard infantry combat load or perform other physically demanding Army combat missions. The old sex normed Army Physical Fitness Test results and the high failure rate for women on the new Army Combat Fitness Test conclusively demonstrate this to be true.
If the Draft was extended to women, then the only "fair" way to implement it would be to draft equal numbers of men and women. The inevitable result of a sex neutral draft would therefore be a less capable Army due to less capable soldiers or lots of women soldiers with nothing meaningful to contribute to the Army's combat mission.
Of course, the Army does not want conscripts, they want volunteers. No Army officer wants to lead soldiers that are forced to be soldiers.
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