Saturday, March 14, 2015

The 14th Amendment

Here is the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, wherein one will find a right to an abortion, a right to gay marriage, and in general, a right to whatever is deemed good and fitting by progressive jurists under the invention of substantive due process:

Amendment XIV

Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

Section 3.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5.

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

4 comments:

  1. "nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

    Seems pretty clear cut. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

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  2. RIGHT. The equal PROTECTION clause guaranteed not only blacks equal protection under the law, but guaranteed a national right to gay sex and gay marriage...but not the vote for women. LOL.

    Why doesn't it guarantee a right to those who don't want gay marriage in their states? Do they get equal protection?

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  3. 1st statement: Are you arguing that the 14th Amendment doesn't account for the equality of women and men in the eyes of the law?

    2nd statement: Do you have a legally protected right to limit the legal rights of others?

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  4. re: 1st statement: Yes and no. Yes, when it comes to (e.g.) getting a fair trial for matters having to do with life, liberty, and property. But I would say the rights are fairly narrow, given the constraints of what the 14th Amendment was about. No, in the sense that--if the 14th Amendment guaranteed as broad of a right as gay marriage--it would surely guarantee the right of women/gays/etc. to vote. But that it didn't seems clear from the existence of the 19th Amendment.

    re 2nd statement: I don't think so. (Some might think that some rights trump other rights; I tend to think that if I have a right to you're not doing A then it's absolute). But it's begging the question to say that there is a legal right in the Constitution to gay marriage rather than a right of the states to determine who can and cannot marry, or a right for people in their states to live in their state without gay marriage.

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