Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Huh?
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_05_22-2005_05_28.shtml#1117267217
According to [1]an AP story,
[2]American Gold Star Mothers Inc. [which apparently accepts for
membership American citizens who are mothers of American soldiers
who died in action] has rejected [Ligaya] Lagman, a Filipino, for
membership because -� though a permanent resident and a taxpayer -�
she is not a U.S. citizen.
"There's nothing we can do because that's what our organization
says: You have to be an American citizen," national President Ann
Herd said Thursday. "We can't go changing the rules every time the
wind blows." . . .
Rules are rules! They were obviously handed down at Mt. Sinai. Or by
the Founding Fathers. Or by Congress. Or, wait, maybe they're just
something that our predecessors came up with, and that we are entitled
to change. (My understanding is that nearly all such organizations
indeed have the power to change their bylaws.)
So forget about the rules are rules, and explain why this is a good
rule. It's not an obviously ridiculous rule: Citizenship says
something about a person, and a group that's set up in part to foster
patriotic love of the U.S. may understandably want to limit its
membership to U.S. citizens. Plus of course it's not like denying
Lagman membership would be a vast harm to her.
Yet it strikes me as something of a mean-spirited rule nonetheless.
This is a mother of someone who died fighting for the U.S.; she lives
in the U.S.; she wants to join an organization that honors soldiers
who died fighting for the U.S. (the story suggests that the person who
nominated her may be more interested in getting the organization to
change its rules, but I have no reason to doubt that the mother
sincerely sympathizes with the views of the organization). It's not
like changing the rules will let some horde of furriners will
overwhelm the organization and turn it to nefarious purposes. Would it
kill them to include women like Ms. Lagman, women with whom they have
far more in common than they have differences?
But in any event, if they want to defend their position, it seems to
me that they should defend it on the merits, rather than appealing to
The Rules.
References
1. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,157839,00.html
2. http://www.goldstarmoms.com/
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