It has been a month since the Honduran army, at the direction of the Supreme Court, removed President Manuel Zelaya from office and a month since – on its own initiative – the army sent Zelaya into exile. So far, demonstrations and failed negotiations have not changed the status quo. The interim government of President Roberto Micheletti remains in power, isolated from its central American neighbours and ostracized on the world stage, while Zelaya remains determined to resume office, unrepentant of his illegal activity and encouraged by the support of world leaders from Obama to Chavez.

My July 2 article expressing support for Zelaya's ouster recently came under criticism, with Dalhousie's Professor Robert Huish accusing me of in essence ignoring military brutality and the best interests of the Honduran people by supporting a conservative army coup. Though Prof. Huish makes a powerful emotional case, I stand by my position. Let me explain why.

Huish paints a disturbing picture of the state of affairs in Honduras. "[T]anks, tear gas, death threats, hired assassins, and soldiers keen to beat the poor to a pulp" have left the Honduran people "bleed[ing] in the streets," he tells us. Those who protest are "sent . . . to early graves." No right-thinking person could support such a brutal, repressive military regime, he suggests – and he's right. If Honduras really were like that, I'd be the first to condemn the regime.

But Huish cites no specific source for his allegations, and reports from reputable human rights organizations paint a very different picture – one that is troubling enough without embellishment or exaggeration.

Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have identified acts of intimidation by the Honduran military, including the arrest of pro-Zelaya demonstrators and the obstruction of certain media outlets.

And, of course, the military appears to have been responsible for the tragic and unnecessary death of Isi Obed Murillo, a 15-year-old boy shot during a pro-Zelaya protest at the Tegucigalpa airport on July 5.

Yet these documented military excesses and abuses, deplorable though they are, do not turn Honduras into the police state Huish describes. The restrictions on Honduran liberty imposed since Zelaya's removal – the curfews, travel restrictions, and media controls – are all related to the current crisis; they are not designed to install a military government.

I want to make clear that I think the measures are unwise and unnecessary. But it is important to remember that Zelaya has called for a mutiny in the army ranks, and that Hugo Chavez has repeatedly threatened invasion.

Pierre Trudeau suspended civil liberties and rolled in the tanks in far less pressing circumstances during the October Crisis of 1970; and while that decision was (and remains) deeply controversial, it did not turn Canada into a military dictatorship. So it is in Honduras.

The military may well be operating with an unnecessarily heavy fist – and to the degree that it is, it is to be condemned. But the military has not overthrown the civilian government.

Elections are expected to take place on schedule this fall, and I have seen no reports of army interference with that democratic process. In fact, interim President Micheletti has repeatedly indicated the government's willingness to advance the date of elections so that Hondurans can choose a new government untainted by the Zelaya ouster; but Zelaya has rejected the compromise because it will not return him to office.

The point is that whether elections happen now or in the fall, they will happen; and I will gladly join Prof. Huish in calling on the new government to investigate the military's conduct during the crisis and to punish unnecessary excesses.

Yet that does not seem to satisfy Prof. Huish, who admits that he'd just as soon see the Honduran constitution swept aside – provided it is Zelaya who does the sweeping. "Honduras’s constitution has let down its nobodies," he writes, those who are "too poor to see the doctor, too marginalized to go to school, and many [of whom] are doomed to die before the age of five because of dirty water, closed up hospitals, and preventable diseases."

Huish may well be right; I don't pretend to be an expert on Honduran domestic politics. And as a political platform, his call for social justice has great appeal. But Huish seems to argue that the existence of social inequalities delegitimizes the entire existing constitutional order and (therefore) justifies Zelaya's conduct in attempting an illegal constitutional change.

I disagree. The extent to which positive social rights should be constitutionally and legally protected is an age-old question in the democratic world. Different societies have come to different conclusions at different times, and the debate rages on. A country should be free to choose where on that continuum it falls at any given time, and that choice should take place at the ballot. As long as every member of society has the right to participate in elections, we outside observers should respect – and support – the underlying constitutional order.

That doesn't mean we should be content with the political status quo. It may be, as Prof. Huish suggests, that poor Hondurans face practical obstacles to voting; if that's so, then I certainly would support efforts to remove those obstacles by, for instance, providing public transportation to polling stations and ensuring that citizens are not punished by employers for taking time off to vote.

But it is dangerous to suggest, as Huish seems to suggest, that a failure to pass certain social policies delegitimizes a constitutional government. If that were so, then every election would become a civil war, as every losing party would claim an entitlement to overthrow the constitution in order to enact its own preferred policies. Democracy cannot survive in such conditions.

We need not be content with the politics of the Honduran government; but we must respect the rule of law. By all means, let us agitate for policy changes that expand social rights; but let us do so in the context of elections. The alternative is lawlessness. It puts power in the hands of the strongest, or the meanest, or the least compromising. It encourages violence and retribution. And it is, after all, how we got here in the first place.