Definition
A national organization that engages in litigation, legislative lobbying, and educational outreach in order to preserve and further individual rights and liberties that are guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States. Among the constitutional rights that the ACLU promotes are First Amendment, equal protection, due process, and privacy rights.
American Civil Liberties Union website:
The U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that people detained as enemy combatants had the constitutional right to challenge their detention before a neutral decision maker.
An abbreviation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender people or groups.
The total income of an individual or business from all sources, before subtracting adjustments, exemptions, or deductions allowed by tax law.
So-called Defense of Marriage laws define marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman, for the purpose of excluding same-sex couples from the institution of marriage. The federal DOMA prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex legal relationships entered into in one of the states that recognize same-sex unions. Individual states' DOMA laws provide that those states do not allow same-sex marriage and, often, do not recognize same-sex unions from other states.
A thing that has a physical existence, as opposed to something incorporeal, like a right, which does not. Also called tangible.
1) Abuse, generally: physically, sexually, or mentally injuring a person.
2) Child abuse: physically, sexually, or mentally injuring a child either with intent or through neglect.
3) Substance abuse: excessively using or misusing a legal or illegal substance.
4) In bankruptcy: filing under chapter 7 by a debtor whose monthly, disposable income exceeds $10,950 or 25% of his or her non-priority unsecured debt (if at least $6,575) for a five-year period is presumptively abusive, requiring dismissal or conversion to chapter 13.
Taking a person away by means of persuasion, fraud, or force. Some jurisdictions also require that the abductee, the person abducted, be a child or that that the abductor intend to marry or defile the abductee or subject him or her to prostitution or concubinage. Parental abduction, a parent's abduction of his or her child, is a crime. Although the terms abduction and kidnapping are, at times, used interchangeably, kidnapping is narrower, generally requiring the threat or use of force.
Conscripting children is a war crime punishable by the International Criminal Court. The crime has the following elements:
Forced pregnancy is a war crime punishable by the International Criminal Court. The crime has the following elements:
