Weekly Commentary: Democracy 101 Supreme Court declines to void legislation
granting Yeshiva students exemption from draft
Dr. Aaron Lerner 22 March 2023

Public Law 759 - 80th Congress [Selective Service Act of 1948]
...
Sec 6. (g)...students preparing for the ministry under the direction of
recognized churches or religious organizations, who are satisfactorily
pursuing full-time courses of instruction in recognized theological or
divinity schools, or who are satisfactorily pursuing full-time courses of
instruction leading to their entrance into recognized theological or
divinity schools in which they have been preenrolled, shall be exempt from
training and service (but not from registration) under this title.

The Supreme Court ruled in Gillette v. United States, 401 U.S. 437, that
this provision of the law did not violate a key tenet of the Constitution of
the United States of America - the separation of church and state.

The democratically elected House and Senate of the United States voted to
give an exemption.

And if enough of the public didn't like this provision, a democratically
elected House and Senate of the United States would have voted to drop the
exemption.

That's the way democracies work.

I want to be clear about this.

I oppose a blanket exemption for yeshiva students to the draft in the IDF.

I believe that the blanket exemption is causing a tremendously destructive
distortion in the life choices of Haredis, life choices which will cost our
country dearly.

But the courts cannot save us from bad public policy in a democracy. Only
the ballot box can.

And this is where things start to get complicated.

Because in a democracy the question isn't if a simple majority are for or
against something. It's more like a complicated weighted average. It's a
complicated weighted average because some voters consider this issue more
important than others. So if a minority of voters think that its so
important that this determines which party they vote for while the rest
consider it of secondary or tertiary importance then that minority may, in
the dynamics of the give and take of politics, get their way.

Unfortunately, the "just not Bibi" phenomenon has caused a tremendous
distortion in this legislative give and take process by preventing the
formation of a coalition which could have put an end to the Haredi "poor by
choice" and "unskilled by choice" phenomenon which literally threatens the
future of our country.

But this is not a problem for the courts to resolve.

And its not going to be resolved by burning down our economy, undermining
the functioning of the IDF or making everyone else's lives miserable by
blocking our roads.

The democratic process got us into this mess and only the democratic process
can get us out of it.

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