Prop 8 Trial

When Proposition 8, a bill intended to end the  right of homosexuals to marry, was passed, many LGBTQ couples, like Kristin Perry, were enraged. As a result, the Perry vs. Schwarzenneger case became a historical uproar in the nation today.The nation's first trial on same-sex couples' right to marry - and the voters' power to forbid those marriages - is held in a San Francisco federal courtroom that will serve as a forum for two diametrically opposed world views. This trial's goal is to repeal Prop 8 by proving that the intentions of the bill is unconstitutional in terms of violating the fourteenth amendment by discriminating against a minority group (homosexuals/gays/lesbians) and robbing this minority group of their freedom of expression. Moreover, the nation is divided by this predicament, with the pro-Prop 8 group saying that the state of California has already decided that gay marriage is not allowed with the bill passed with more than half of the people's vote. 

The gay community seeks to prove Prop 8 as a discriminative inequality towards them by showing how the media and advertisements portray them as a negative figure in the society, people who are harmful towards children and the morality of the people. In reality, the gay community does not pose any threat to anyone, given that being gay is not a crime; therefore, they should not have their rights, such as the right to marry, because they are not convicts or criminals. 

For Prop. 8's sponsors, a religious coalition called Protect Marriage, anti-gay bias is no longer significant in California, where legislators have legalized domestic partnerships and twice voted to authorize same-sex marriage. Numerous people say that religion has to do a lot with the ban of gay marriage. However, not everyone practices the same religion and has the right of the Free exercise clause in the fourteenth amendment to decide whether or not they want to engage in a certain religion. Some people may consider gay marriages wrong, but it does not mean that it's completely wrong to everyone. The government say they have a separation of church and state, but the passage of Proposition 8 prove it contradictory. 

Prop 8 must be repealed because it censors the implied power of the first amendment, the right of expression. Who can say that homosexual marriages are wrong? Prop. 8 is discriminatory contract that must be change in order to bring justice to the gay community and to the overall moral of the nation.

 

http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-01-11/news/17823941_1_same-sex-marriage-couples-court-ruling

National Security Policy: Freedom Of Information Act

The National Security Agency(NSA) has passed an act whose goal is to release as much information to the nation by the United States Government, with the exceptions of case sensitive information.The Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) generally provides that any person (with the exception of another federal agency, a fugitive from the law, or a representative of a foreign government) has a right, enforceable in court, to request access to federal agency records,except to some degree of disclosure. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 6, 1966  and went into effect the following year. With the tensions rising between the US government and its American constituents during the age of War and terrorism, many citizens thought it was necessary to be informed of all the actions of their country, even to the point of close meticulousness.

Further elaborating the FOIA was the Privacy Act of 1974 , which protects an individual's privacy by putting controls on federal agencies in the collection, use, maintenance, and dissemination of personal information. This was created so that all persons in the nation will not have the privilege to attain the individuals private information. The Privacy Act also requires that agency records be accurate, relevant, timely, and complete, and amendments are limited to these criteria.

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/foia/index.shtml