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re: Judge strikes down Wisconsin gay marriage ban[W:287]
Ballot initiatives cannot happen on a federal level (not that I'm aware of).
But we have exceptions to equal protection now based on legal precedent, level of scrutiny. We don't treat 15 year olds the same as 25 year olds and older. In fact, we have age limits that treat adults differently than other adults under some laws (drinking and even some marriage laws). I don't have a problem with the process for making Amendments at all, even if it would put in place exceptions to some Amendments. Even our Constitution isn't perfect, we're human. But I would feel that putting a place an Amendment that would define marriage a certain way constitutionally would be just plain wrong and I would fight against it. It would be worse than having Prohibition in the Constitution, and that was definitely bad enough.
But same sex marriage is not the only place such an Amendment was tried. In the early part of the 20th Century, several attempts were made nationally to make an Amendment that would define marriage as only a man and woman of the same race. Luckily then too, all of those attempts failed.
Gets harder to respect a process that would result in 'exceptions' to due process/equal protection. Then again that's why i'm against ballot initiatives now, cause that's what happened in most states.
Ballot initiatives cannot happen on a federal level (not that I'm aware of).
But we have exceptions to equal protection now based on legal precedent, level of scrutiny. We don't treat 15 year olds the same as 25 year olds and older. In fact, we have age limits that treat adults differently than other adults under some laws (drinking and even some marriage laws). I don't have a problem with the process for making Amendments at all, even if it would put in place exceptions to some Amendments. Even our Constitution isn't perfect, we're human. But I would feel that putting a place an Amendment that would define marriage a certain way constitutionally would be just plain wrong and I would fight against it. It would be worse than having Prohibition in the Constitution, and that was definitely bad enough.
But same sex marriage is not the only place such an Amendment was tried. In the early part of the 20th Century, several attempts were made nationally to make an Amendment that would define marriage as only a man and woman of the same race. Luckily then too, all of those attempts failed.