One For The Ladies

It's 2019, and with the Pentagon allowing women in combat roles up to an including Special Operations, a federal judge has declared the draft being male-only to be unconstitutional, ordering the Selective Service to start registering men and women at age 18.

A military draft that applies only to men is unconstitutional, a federal judge in Houston has ruled, saying that excluding women is no longer justified because they can now serve in combat roles just as men do.

Judge Gray H. Miller of Federal District Court in the Southern District of Texas took note of the Supreme Court’s 1981 ruling that the exclusion of women from the draft was “fully justified” because women then were not allowed to serve in combat. But the Pentagon abolished those restrictions in 2015, opening the way for women to serve in any military role for which they could qualify.

“While historical restrictions on women in the military may have justified past discrimination, men and women are now ‘similarly situated for purposes of a draft or registration for a draft,’” Judge Miller wrote in his ruling. “If there ever was a time to discuss ‘the place of women in the Armed Services,’ that time has passed.”

Though no one has been conscripted into the United States military in more than 40 years, the Military Selective Service Act requires all American men to register when they turn 18, in case a draft is reinstated; they remain eligible through age 25. Men who do not register can be fined, imprisoned and denied services like federal student loans.

The ruling came in a case brought by the National Coalition for Men, a men’s rights group, which argued that drafting men exclusively violates the 14th Amendment’s equal-protection clause.

Kate Germano, a retired Marine who served for 20 years, said on Sunday that the ruling was a natural progression from the lifting of the ban on women in combat roles.

“It would be an advantage to the country, and also for men, who have bore the preponderance of the burden since the draft was established,” Ms. Germano said of registering women. Noting that women make up slightly more than half the adult population, she said, “Why not leverage all of the talent pool?”

David R. Segal, the founding director of the Center for Research on Military Organization at the University of Maryland, said he supports retaining draft registration, and that as a matter of equality, both men and women should be part of it.

“Since registration for selective service is one of the indicators of citizenship, I think we should at least say publicly that women and men have the same rights and responsibilities of citizenship,” said Mr. Segal, who has been studying military organization for more than 50 years.

The men’s rights group that brought the suit welcomed the ruling. “We think it’s about time since women are allowed in combat,” Marc E. Angelucci, a lawyer for the National Coalition for Men, said. “If we have draft registration, both sexes should have to register. There’s really no more excuse to require only men to register.”

The Pentagon declined to comment on Sunday.

Of course, the men's rights geniuses figure if women start getting registered for the draft, and killed in combat missions, the country will immediately recoil in horror and put an end to it, proving once and for all that men are superior to women.  At least that's how it goes if you have a soiled jockstrap for a brain.

This will be proof, conservatives say, that women should want and need separation from men, the price of that being admission that they are the weaker sex, and need protection from burly alphas As God Above Intended.  They expect a massive outcry that women shouldn't have to register, and it's checkmate for the men, proving women are weak after all.

Considering none of these idiots would want their sons to go to war either, my guess is that all this will do is prevent the draft from happening again, ever. Not a bad outcome, but a stupid way to get it.  Meanwhile, the Pentagon will continue to have women in combat roles like several of our allies do, without drafts or conscription.

(Not talking to you, Israel.)