"Amusing" Lawsuit: "...the U.S. Constitution prohibits a woman from holding the office."

[Emit]

April 8, 2008

Lawsuit: Woman can't be president

In a lawsuit that legal scholars call "amusing," a Reno man is seeking to keep U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton off the Nevada ballot with the argument that the U.S. Constitution prohibits a woman from holding the office.

Douglas Wallace, 80, contends that because the U.S. Constitution relies on the pronouns "he" and "his" in describing the duties of the president, no woman can hold the office.

Wallace argues the constitution would have to be amended to specifically allow a female president and accused Clinton of trying to make an "end run around the Constitution."

"The use of female gendered pronouns 'she' or 'her' are not present in the document, making it conclusive that the framers never intended that a woman would be president of the United States," Wallace wrote in the lawsuit.

That argument is without merit, several legal scholars said Monday.

"The use of the masculine pronoun is a relic of the period," said Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School. "The constitution has been amended to expressly incorporate women into the political system. No court would subscribe to this meritless argument."

Wallace, who describes himself as a civil rights fighter, said his lawsuit, filed Friday in Washoe District Court against the secretary of state, is meant to force changes so that "women can legally be U.S. president." He believes it's an important enough issue to require a constitutional amendment or an interpretation by the U.S. Supreme Court.

He is a non-practicing member of the Washington state bar who filed the lawsuit on his own. He is a retired engineer and a Democrat, who once ran for the Sparks City Council. During his campaign, he advocated that a snowshed be built over Interstate 80 from Donner Pass to Kingvale, Calif.

~snip~

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080408/NEWS19/804080355



Weird, this is the same guy who filed a suit against Bush & Cheney, seeking "an injunction against the Defendants from further implementation of the Plan for the New American Century (PNAC)...":

SERVICE FINALLY MADE ON BUSH,CHENEY
FOUNDERS FREEDOM DEFENSE FUND
P.O. Box 60958 Reno, NV 89506

PRESS RELEASE

Date: January 18, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SUBJECT MATTER:

ON JANUARY 17th GEORGE W. BUSH AND DICK CHENEY WERE SERVED LONG DELAYED SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT


The lawsuit filed on January 14th 2005 in US District Court in Reno, Nevada by retired Washington State attorney Douglas A. Wallace was served upon the Defendants at the office of the Attorney General in Washington D. C.

The class action lawsuit seeks an injunction against the Defendants from further implementation of the Plan for the New American Century (PNAC) without a Constitutional 2/3 vote of the Congress and full education of the American public.
The lawsuit alleges the plan was the basis for deception behind the Iraq war.

The suit alleges that defendants acted in a conspiratorial manner among themselves in deceiving the Congress and the American public of the need to go to war with Iraq. Hence a private treaty among the conspirators to violate Constitutional restraints upon Bush and Cheney.

~snip~

www.wallacevbushlawsuit.com
http://foundersfreedomdefensefund.blogspot.com/

[sarge43]

1. Wallace seems rather selective in his reading

He might want to read Article XIV, Section 1, USC

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. (My emphasis)

[sarge43]

2. Deleted

Double entry

[TheWraith]

3. Sounds like a loopy tin-foil type.

Even if it weren't arcane, the argument still doesn't hold water. In the english langage, the male gender is often used when actual sex is not known or specified. These days it's more common to use "they" or "them" instead of "he" or "him," but you still see the latter sometimes. It's just a linguistic thing--not something that you could get enforced as a law, since there's nothing explicitly supporting it in the Constitution, and there ARE explicit references to the opposite case.

[Ian David]

5. The same way "the" bible refers to god as "He" when everyone knows god is a woman. n/t

[TheWraith]

8. Actually, sort of.

In the original Hebrew text, God was typically referred to either by name or by one of a couple of pseudonyms (because the name of God wasn't supposed to be said aloud).

However, in the instances where a third-person masculine pronoun was used, there isn't really any conclusive linguistic evidence that they meant this in a gender-specific way, or to assign a quality of male-ness to God.

Unlike English, the ancient Hebrew language has no neuter-pronoun: there's no linguistic way to refer to a living thing as "it," and to call God "they" would have had anti-monotheist connotations. Hence, unless you were calling God by one of the pseudonyms all the time, you would need to use either "him" or "her."

In short, it's impossible to say whether there was the intentional image of a male God on the part of the ancient Hebrew writers, or if it was simply a convenient shorthand for referring to a God who was seen as being transhuman, and therefore not having a gender. For that matter, both views could have been represented at different times.

[Emit]

6. If not for the other law suit he attempted, I'd say he was nothing more than a misogynist loopy,

old man. But, seems he believes another Clinton administration is more a continuation of the Bush & Co./PNAC agenda. I agree, however, that his argument doesn't hold water.

[Ian David]

4. I don't think he's a Bad Person. Just very, very bored with way too much time on his hands. n/t

[JimGinPA]

7. Well, I'd Laugh My Ass Off If Some Judge Slapped An Injunction On Her...

Cease and Desist Mrs. Clinton! And here's a Restraining Order keeping her 500 feet from the convention!


:rofl: