A Biden-appointed federal judge cited the Broadway musical “Hamilton” in a Tuesday night filing blocking the Trump administration from implementing its de facto ban on transgender people serving in the military.
United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia Ana Reyes cited the musical — a favorite production among liberals — in her Tuesday night ruling to assert that “all people are created equal” instead of referencing the Declaration of Independence’s famous “all men are created equal” line. Former President Joe Biden appointed Reyes to her spot on the bench in February 2023.
“The Court does not issue this preliminary injunction lightly. Judicial overreach is no less pernicious than executive overreach. But the coordinate branches must, ‘by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places,’” Reyes wrote. “The President and Defendants could have crafted a policy that balances the Nation’s need for a prepared military and Americans’ right to equal protection. They still can. The Military Ban, however, is not that policy. The Court therefore must act to uphold the equal protection rights that the military defends every day. The Court’s opinion is long, but its premise is simple. In the self-evident truth that ‘all people are created equal,’ all means all. Nothing more. And certainly nothing less.”
Reyes Order 3-18 by Nick Pope on Scribd
The footnote attached to the “all people are created equal” line cites “Hamilton,” specifically because Reyes notes that women were not included in the Declaration of Independence’s initial promise until the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote in 1920. Notably, “Hamilton” canceled its planned 2026 run at the Kennedy Center — a performing arts venue in Washington, D.C., favored by the capital’s well-to-do — after the Trump administration took over and cleaned house at the Kennedy Center in February.
“Leaders have used concern for military readiness to deny marginalized persons,” Reyes wrote in her filing. “First minorities, then women in combat, then gays filled in that blank. Today, however, our military is stronger and our Nation is safer for the millions of such blanks (and all other persons) who serve.”
In her ruling, Reyes repeatedly asserted that the Trump administration’s February move to effectively bar transgender people from military service is based on conjecture, writing at one point that the policy “is soaked in animus and dripping with pretext.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has emphasized that one of his top priorities in the top job at the Pentagon is to root out left-wing social engineering, including transgender ideology, from the military’s operations and restore its focus on fighting and winning wars.
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