Letters
Aug. 17, 2010
Who Would Have Imagined?
Stephen F. Rohde of Rohde & Victoroff responds to criticism of Katherine Dramer's analysis of the Proposition 8 decision.
Stephen F. Rohde
Email: rohdevictr@aol.com
Stephen is a retired civil liberties lawyer and contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books, is author of American Words for Freedom and Freedom of Assembly.
Who would have imagined that when Professor Katherine Darmer, Chapman University Law School, wrote such a thoughtful article entitled "Will of the People, Irrelevant Under Federal Constitution," (August 10) analyzing U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker's comprehensive 136-page opinion striking down Proposition 8, it would trigger such a mean-spirited letter from Nathaniel J. Friedman. ("A Certain Irony," August 12).
Without citing a single flaw in either Walker's opinion or Darmer's article, Friedman accuses her of "flag-waving" for the "homosexual lobby" by writing a "screed." On the merits, Friedman may have forgotten that Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson said it best in 1943 when he wrote that the "very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections." STEPHEN F. ROHDE ROHDE & VICTOROFF, LOS ANGELESSubmit your own column for publication to Diana Bosetti
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