Lee A. Casey

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When the Pentagon's top brass announced last week that they no longer believe military unit cohesion suffers from the presence of openly gay men or women in the ranks, they effectively transformed a policy question into a legal one, to which the answer is clear: Congress can no longer mandate discrimination in the armed forces on the basis of sexual orientation.

In the 2003 case Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law criminalizing same-gender sexual relations, reasoning that such conduct was part of a constitutionally protected liberty interest. The court also suggested that the Texas statute was vulnerable to challenge as a denial of equal protection of the laws.…  Seguir leyendo »

Hamas claims that former president Jimmy Carter's recent meeting with its leader, Khaled Meshal, marks its recognition as a "national liberation movement" -- even though Hamas rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, which Hamas rules as an elected "government," continue to rain down on Israel's civilian population. While Hamas is clearly trying to bolster its legitimacy, the conflict along Israel's southern border has a broader legal dimension -- the question of whether, as a matter of international law, Israel "occupies" Gaza. The answer is pivotal: It governs the legal rights of Israel and Gaza's population and may well set a legal precedent for wars between sovereign states and non-state entities, including terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda.…  Seguir leyendo »

The federal appeals court in Richmond should quickly grant the Justice Department's request that it reconsider last month's decision in the case of Al-Marri v. Wright-- a decision that denied the existence of the legal category "unlawful enemy combatant" in America's conflict with al-Qaeda. (This question is not, it should be noted, at issue in the Guantanamo detainee cases that the Supreme Court has just agreed to hear in the fall.)

The reasoning in the Al-Marri case was deeply flawed, and if widely adopted it would undermine a fundamental purpose of the laws of war: avoiding impunity for war crimes.…  Seguir leyendo »

An Italian court announced this month that it is moving forward with the indictment and trial of 25 CIA agents charged with kidnapping a radical Muslim cleric. These proceedings may well violate international law, but the case serves as a wake-up call to the United States. Overseas opponents of American foreign policy are increasingly turning to judicial proceedings against individual American officials as a means of reformulating or frustrating U.S. aims, and action to arrest this development is needed.

The Italian case involves a 2003 CIA mission to apprehend an Egyptian cleric named Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr. Suspected of terrorist ties, Nasr was seized in Milan and transported to Egypt, where he claims he was tortured.…  Seguir leyendo »

Conservatives have consoled themselves since Election Day with the knowledge that many “conservative” social issues did well — including (and especially) the eight state “marriage amendments” on the ballot — even if the Republican candidates faltered.

These marriage measures, of which only Arizona’s was defeated, generally prevent recognition of gay marriages by defining marriage as a “union between a man and a woman” in the state constitutions. More than half of the states now have such constitutional provisions (some of which would also forbid same-sex civil unions), and conservatives need to reconsider whether that’s really what we want. There are, in fact, some very good reasons conservatives should oppose this approach.…  Seguir leyendo »