Subject:
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Re: Santorum Fails In His Effort To Pervert The Constitution
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 3 Aug 2004 22:53:01 GMT
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Viewed:
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2801 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks wrote:
> I guess it depends on who you think gets to interpret the constitution and
> define our rights. The Supreme Court has at least sometimes supported the
> understanding that Larry and I share (I think), that the 9th is an umbrella
> for all rights understood under common law. Which means that the state
> can't e.g. strip you of the right to own a car.
Prior to 1965, the 9th Amendment was not used to restrict the states from
excercising their 10th Amendment rights. At that point, it was used to
safeguard the privacy of one's home, but subsequent citations of the 9th
Amendment have shown that the Supreme Court could strip states of any right to
enforce their laws against infractions that take place solely on private
property. That doesn't mean it's always right. And it doesn't mean that's why
it was put there.
It has been ruled by Roe v Wade that the states can't outlaw abortion altogether
(in spite of the fact that outlawing and punishing murder was pointedly
relegated to the states), but it's also been ruled that the states can't be
forced to pay for it. It's already been pointed out that the US constitution
gives the people the right to freely associate with each other in whatever
manner they prefer, but again, that does not mean that the states are required
by the constitution to hand out marriage licenses to same-sex couples if they
don't feel like it (and as yet noone has satisfactorily shown evidence to the
contrary). Allowing a thing is not the same as endorsing or sponsoring a thing.
So again, you can say you're married, you can even feel like you're married, but
you have to jump through the hoops set by the state to get their state marriage
license. And if one of those hoops is showing up as a man/woman couple, that's
their choice under the 10th Amendment. If you still want something to pin on
your wall, you're fully within your rights to draw up a civil contract of your
own, but anything more is probably going to require a lot of campaigning, and a
serious shift in public opinion.
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