Church and State, Constitution, Current Events, Economics, Employment Law, History / May 12

Church, State, and the Postal Service: The Contentious History of Sunday Mail Delivery

Between its inception in 1775 and 1912, postal employees delivered mail seven (7) days a week. In the early 1800s, religious leaders became concerned that employees were forced to work on the “Christian Sabbath,” or Sunday, and began to petition Congress to use its Article I powers to disallow Sunday delivery. This concern reached a fevered pitch in 1810 when Congress required post offices to open at least one hour on Sunday. Outraged that Congress had thus enforced Sunday desecration, religious leaders began to clamor for legislation that would outlaw Sunday operations.

Civil Rights, Constitution, Current Events, Discrimination, Family, History, In the News / Mar 11

Obama Administration Changes Its Approach to the Defense of Marriage Act

During the brief window between the California Supreme Court’s decision finding a ban on same-sex marriage in violation of the California Constitution on May 15, 2008 and the ballot-initiative amending said constitution on November 5, 2008, Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer got married.

While same-sex marriages during this window period have been recognized in California since they were presumably “constitutional,” the newlyweds filed a case against the federal government in state court that was transferred upon motion of the federal government into federal court alleging that “the refusal of all states and jurisdictions” to recognize the validity of their marriage resulted in the denial of their marriage status by other states, and federal rights and benefits that other married couples received so long as they were of the opposite sex.