Word: bans
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...Tuesday the City Council in Madison will vote whether elected officials or city appointees can add to their oath of office, in which they swear to uphold the state and federal constitutions, a rejection of the parts they don't like. It started when Wisconsin amended its constitution to ban gay marriage, and a member of the city's Equal Opportunities Commission resigned rather than swear the traditional oath. Members of that board in particular, which is charged with protecting civil rights, felt torn about promising to uphold laws they felt were discriminatory. So the Council will debate whether public...
...piece of democratic faith, that when you disagree with a law you work to change it, or - in the tradition of civil disobedience - you break it and suffer the consequences. So you can respect the city commissioner who didn't feel he could even implicitly endorse a gay marriage ban and would rather resign than pretend. But what happens if you let officials take office with an asterisk in their oath? That would "come perilously close to saying [that] in their duties they will ignore the law or alter the law when it conflicts with their personal principles," UW-Madison...
Last Tuesday, a sufficiently large minority of the Massachusetts Legislature voted to advance a 2008 ballot referendum that, if approved by the Commonwealth’s electorate, will impose a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. In so doing, the Legislature compromised one of the most fundamental principles of our democracy: that the civil rights of minorities are meant to be protected by the government, not hijacked by popular passion. Gay and lesbian couples, like all people, have the right to marry—a right that should not be jeopardized by political maneuvering.The very ability to amend the Massachusetts...
...When the new House leadership announced it was going to ban travel on corporate jets-something that goes farther than what the Democrats had promised during the midterm election campaign-it signaled that they might actually be willing to give up the day-to-day lifestyle perks that have created what Fred Wertheimer, head of the watchdog group Democracy 21, calls a "culture of entitlement." Congressmen have always envied the corporate life, and never tire of telling you how much more money they would be making if they hadn't selflessly decided to run for office. In recent years...
...Over the last five months, Mogadishu had enjoyed its first respite from 15 years of clan war, after the Islamic Courts Union - an alliance of clerics and sympathetic warlords - drove the last four independent warlords out of the capital. The Courts won few fans for their attempts to ban music, soccer, cinemas and qat, the local plant traditionally chewed for its mild stimulant effect. But their success in imposing law and order, and their unexpected ability to rise above clan rivalries, won them almost universal respect...