Thank You, Steve Stowell BY KAREN KERIN T It is always good to clear the air and Steve Stowell in his let- ter to the editor printed in the September issue of Out in the Mountains provided an oppor- tunity to do so. He took issue with my article in the August edition. First, he took issue with a - summation of the results of the presidential election, claiming that ourConstitutionaI frame- work, as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court, resulted in a faulty decision in Bush v. Gore. His thesis centers on his allegation of a partisan vote that denied each vote being counted, thus throwing the , vote to Bush. This is a trou- bling allegation because it is the same court, regardless of the president was that appoint- ed them, which ruled Colorado Amendment 2 to be unconsti- tutional. Wasn’t this hailed as a monumental ruling for the court? Our courts, whether the Supreme Court, a subordinate court or a Vermont Court, are constrained by the national or state constitution. Mr. Stowell is complaining about a legal framework that does not always give him a result he likes. All of‘ us, from time to time, disagree with an outcome and at other times are cheered by a result. Whatever Mr. Stowell, “and everyone. he knows”, might think, and cer- tainly ourjudiciary is far from perfect, it is the best ever devised by human genius. I, for one, am not ready to aban- don a legal system that has provided stability for nearly all the life of the nation, because the alternative to the courts is an anarchy too terrible to con- template. I wonder if Mr. Stowell would like to disre- gard the Vermont Supreme Court whose ruling on the same sex marriage issue angered another minority because the court was all picked by Kunin and Dean? I certainly hope not. It’s all in whose ox got gored. And, by the way, I rendered no opinion on the decisions of either the Florida Supreme Court or the U.S. Supreme Court, so I am more than a little baffled at Mr. Stowell’s conclusions. I can only suppose that he cleaves to something other than the rule of law. Heaven forbid, because that is what we have Seen in totalitarian countries, which, like the Nazis, gave us the pink triangle and death sentences for a stateof being. Next, Mr. Stowell com- plained that our “faux- President”, Mr. Bush, was destroying “our environmental and anti-ballistic treaties”. I can only surmise that the refer- ence to environmental treaties was the Kyoto Protocol, which is not a treaty. The U.S. Senate did not ratify the protocol. Under the terms of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, specifically Article 14 (l)(c), “The consent of_a state to be bound by a treaty is expressed by ratification when: the representative of the state has signed the treaty sub- ject to ratification”. The U.S. Constitution requires ratifica- tion by the U.S. Senate. 1 am clueless regarding any other environmental treaties that are being “destroyed”. Having a master’s degree in environ- mental law and having worked for my LLM in international law, I suspect I would know if there were some other environ- mental instrument being destroyed. In any case, I am unaware of the United States of America ever repudiating any environmental treaty, or treaty of any kind for that mat- ter, except under the appropri- ate rules for doing so as pro- vided in the Vienna Convention. The anti-ballistic missile treaty was made with a party no longer in existence, the for- mer Soviet Union, hence the former treaty has no corre- spondent to create a valid and enforceable treaty. Article 61 of the Vienna Convention Addresses “supervening impossibility of performance”. “A party may invoke the impossibility of performing a treaty as a ground for terminating or withdrawing from it, if the impossibility results from the permanent disappearance or destruction of an object indis- pensable for the execution of the treaty.” In the bilateral ABM treaty, the disappearance of the former Soviet Union renders it impossible to per- form. Besides the absence of ‘ another party tothe treaty, like so many treaties, the treaty has lost it’s utility. We no longer have a superpower confronta- tion, but instead have worse threat from rogue states and terrorist organizations. September 11, 20701 clearly demonstrated just how danger- ous the world has become when a handful of terrorists hijacked four jumbo jets and caused the death of thousands of people, halting the economy of the nation and much of _the world. Clearly, we live in a very different world from the days when the anti-ballistic treaty was created. What we do need today is protection from delivery systems carrying any number of deadly war- heads. We also need to devel- op better security systems to preclude events that destroyed ' so many lives and wiped the World Trade Center from the landscape. Article 64 of the Vienna Convention deals with the “emergence of a new peremptory norm of general international law, referred to as jus cogens, which invalidates the ABM treaty. On those sev- eral grounds, pacta sunt ser- vanda, no longer applies. I like living in a free country and have some experience with living in countries with substantially different sys- tems. If Mr. Bush can improve our security, and that is a col- lective security accruing to us all, I will applaud him and be grateful we have someone who cares enough to work on pro- tecting all of us. Regarding Senator Jeffords, who is raised to heroic status by Mr. Stowell, some few points need to be made. The senator voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, (DOMA). Is that your hero? I worked very hard with the senator to per- suade’ him to make the Employment Non- Discrimination Act (ENDA) inclusive, because I do not believe in creating classes of people. It does not ever equate to equality under the law. When I was in law school, I was deeply involved with the Alliance. It had been original- ly for Gay, Bisexual law students, but when I showed up, it became inclusive ofT’s as well. When I had the opportunity to address an incoming class, it changed to GLBT and straight, telling the new students that if we had left anyone out, to let us know and we would make it inclusive for them. Our mem- bership grew dramatically, because there was fairness and no one was being distin- guished. Mr. Stowell seems to want to remain segregated, but most of us just want to be accepted for who we are on our own merits. Senator Jeffords did some- thing that was not admirable to anyone, no matter the political persuasion. He ran for office under a false flag. I know that because I ran with him on the Republican ticket and saw first . >36 Lesbian and r VIiE\XI/S October 2001 OITM - 11 Benee Franklin (’Xwfi‘{"’ e"“Ig5 &°Tranni/"5 Monday-Saturday 9-9 Sunday 11-5 518 Shelhurne Road Next to Mall 189 862-0646 www.benIrank .haweb.cam Get discounts join our Draft Club! OGGI DESIGN Specializing in: Clipper Cuts Co/or & Highlighting UV6'I_‘ 22 years in the business CALL RICK 1 SCALE AVENUE HOWE CENTER. BUILDING #3 FIUTLAND. VERMONT 05701 802.775.7709 51"‘ We Buy and Sell Real Antiques P.0. 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