A federal judge Friday said that must change — calling the system unconstitutional but not requiring women 18-25 to register*.
U.S. District Judge Gray H. Miller in Houston agreed with the San Diego-based National Coalition for Men and granted its request for summary judgment in a class action suit. “The male-only registration requirement of the Military Selective Service Act, 50 U.S.C. § 3802(a), violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” says Miller’s “final judgment.”
USA Today noted that the ruling came in the form of a declaratory judgment and not an injunction, “meaning that the court didn’t specifically order the government how to change Selective Service to make it constitutional.”
The paper quoted attorney Angelucci as calling the ruling symbolic to some extent.
“Either they need to get rid of the draft registration, or they need to require women to do the same thing that men do,” he said.
The Either/Or nature of the ruling is the best part of how the lawyers argued imo, and demonstrates the MRM and its commitment to equality. The debate on the draft should focus on rights and responsibilities of a citizen, absent of considerations for sexism, and is not the realm of a gender equality movement to determine. What they have determined is that the draft must be equal if it exists and have advocated on that basis.
Notably, this case was not supported in material terms by any organization outside of the mens rights movement. We'll see how the wider media reports on it as this story develops. (And crucially, whether they acknowledge the MRM they've spent decades demonizing achieved this or whether they just call it the NCFM and don't acknowledge that.).
The ruling might provide a defense from punitive action for men who do not register for the draft should the government fail to amend the rules to include women which could force a declaratory judgement by the courts and take this out of the hands of public debate.
