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Elian and Terri
As we are reminded today at Opinion Journal, five years ago the Florida Family Court claimed jurisdiction over the matter of Elian Gonzalez and announced that it would hear evidence from all the parties, including Elian’s Cuban father and Elian’s U.S. relatives. The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, rejecting the INS’ request that Elian be immediately returned to Cuba (a request driven by the Clinton administration’s desire to please the Castro regime), said the procedure in Family Court must go forward. The U.S. Justice Department then defied the courts, sending an early morning armed raid to seize Elian from his relatives’ home. Liberals (sadly joined by some immigration restrictionists who didn’t want to help a single Cuban remain in the U.S., no matter what the circumstances) cheered one of the most lawless and tyrannical acts ever perpetrated by the U.S. government.
Now those same liberals, who supported the U.S. government’s gross violation and disruption of a duly instituted court procedure, insist that a grossly flawed court process, leading to the palpably unjust result of an innocent woman being deliberate starved to death simply because her estranged husband wants her to die, must be obeyed to the letter, and, further, that anyone who advocates emergency legislative or executive action to stop this horrible thing from being done is some kind of Christian fascist. And it’s not just liberals who feel this way. A conservative activist in California wrote to me the other day calling me a “theocrat” for my position on this issue. Email entry |