The Atlantic

Americans concerned with our U.S. presidents’ ability to unilaterally wage war have to be shaking their heads. President Obama has authorized war in Iraq and Libya, not only to defend Kurdish civilians besieged in the Iraqi mountains but also against forces in Syrian territories. Attempting to curb this new escalation seems utterly futile.

I’ve been mulling over ways in which someone in America who shares my concern would be able to — collectively, of course, in our legislative system — prevent the President from launching the types of limited airstrikes that he’s outlined in Iraq and elsewhere. I’ve concluded that it’s almost impossible.

The authority the President, as commander-in-chief has in his reach to wage limited war (which, by most definitions would cover airstrikes) is effectively unchecked. Even if Congress specifically prohibited a president from initiating such attacks, a president could defend his actions with authorization gleaned from several different authorities.

There is a lot of hullabaloo about gay marriage in recent days, mainly because of the decision by the Supreme Court that it would not hear appeals from states defending their bans on gay marriage. Cliff Weathers claimed that this ruling would allow marriage in eleven more states, meaning that 30 states in the US currently allow gay marriage.

Based on this, it is no surprise that Scott Hamilton, the executive director of the Cimarron Alliance Equality Center, would claim that the “excitement in the [LGBTQ+] community is extraordinary. We have some individuals of course who have been waiting decades for this, and they’re anxious to get married just as quickly as they can find a judge to do it.”

This excitement is somewhat questionable, considering, as professor Suzanne Goldberg pointed out, “an explanation for the Court’s cert. denial does not address the depressing result for many same-sex couples who had hoped for an end to the harms they suffer by being treated as legal strangers in their home states,” nor does the ruling end “the suffering of same-sex couples who live in places where they are prevented from marrying or having their marriages recognized.”

It is clear, to bring come back to the question proposed by the title of this article, that the fight for marriage is not over. After all, there is a so-called “marriage market” as Pew Research Center calls it, weirdly enough.

Are There Any Limits On The President’s Ability To Wage War?

Is The Fight For Gay Marriage Over? (Part 1)