Ender
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Why Judge Reinhardt’s opinion on same sex marriage is dangerous to our Republic!
- Thread starter johnwk
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Did you comprehend my post?
Marbury v. Madison (211 years ago), McCulloch v. Maryland (195 years ago), Texas v. White (145 years ago), Missouri v. Holland (94 years ago), West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (77 years ago, overturning Lochner), Wickard v. Filburn (72 years ago), and Kelo v. New London (9 years ago) are all examples of court over-reach from a libertarian perspective. And this list is not exhaustive; I'm sure I could find examples from EVERY term of the SCOTUS and most terms of the various Circuit courts.
And these examples are only the ones where the outcome was unreasonable. Taking into account the justification actually used in the opinions of otherwise tolerable opinions (like the one in this thread, IMO), NEARLY EVERY Court decision violates a libertarian view of the constitution.
I have a problem with the wording in this case, but not as much as some other decisions. For instance, in the recent Heller decision (6 years ago), Scalia said that, in that case, the right to have a firearm was okay, but rights can be attenuated generally. This just said that the 2nd amendment is open to the interpretation of the courts, and your "constitutional rights" are left to be bounded, regulated, and made into state-granted privileges by the personal opinions of the judges and legislatures.
I was just wondering why it took you so long to notice that the very nature of the state is to "impose their personal opinions as the rule of law."
heavenlyboy34
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What republic? I live in a fascist State called teh USA.
You just noticed?
What does your insulting remark have to do with judge Reinhardt's written opinion?
JWK
What does your insulting remark and post have to do with Judge Reinhardt's written opinion?
JWK
At the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18, 1787, a Mrs. Powel anxiously awaited the results and as Benjamin Franklin emerged from the long task now finished asked him directly, `Well, Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?' `A republic, if you can keep it,' responded Franklin.
I didn't insult you, but if this trolling continues, I might not be able to restrain myself.
Notice that I cited actual Constitutional case law, and your opinions are based on (1) a non-binding lecture by one of the worst justices from a libertarian perspective, and (2) an apocryphal quote from someone who was never a judge or any other type of representative of the Constitution.
Further, I agreed that this was a bad decision.
So my questions to you are: (1) How were ANY of the other opinions I cited not based on personal notions of fairness rather than strict obedience to the text of the Constitution? (2) What's the value in preserving a "republic" that has turned out the way that this one has? And (3) are you sure your protestations aren't just because the decision was about homosexual people?
Sonny Tufts
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I'm not sure how Marbury is necessarily anti-libertarian or anti-textual. After all, the Constitution explicitly bestows the "judicial power" upon the federal courts, and it's not beyond reason to argue that this authority includes the power of judicial review.
Several of the cases you cited involved legislative overreach (Parrish, Wickard, Kelo), which the Court upheld. But without the power of judicial review the overreaching legislation would have stood anyway. Are you suggesting the Court should have overturned the statutes in these cases?
Several of the cases you cited involved legislative overreach (Parrish, Wickard, Kelo), which the Court upheld. But without the power of judicial review the overreaching legislation would have stood anyway. Are you suggesting the Court should have overturned the statutes in these cases?
Lucille
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Acala
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I would suggest that it is WAY beyond reason to assume the SCOTUS was meant to have the final word on what the Constitution means. It doesn't make sense that the framers of the Constitution, who were trying very hard to restrain the power of the Federal government would grant to that government the power to decide beyond appeal the limits of its own power. Both Jefferson and Madison opposed that doctrine.
Acala
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The courts drained almost any substantive content from the US Constitution before I was even born, and that was a long time ago.
Sonny Tufts
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But it doesn't. Its decisions on constitutional law can always be overridden by constitutional amendments, so in that sense the people (acting through state legislatures) have the last word. From a more paractical standpoint, the Court has to be careful to not go off the deep end in its decisions because it has no power to enforce its rulings and must rely on the executive branch to do so.
Why Judge Reinhardt’s ruling is a threat to the rule of law!
It is so sad to see that most of those who have entered the thread have ignored the topic of the thread which questions the legitimacy of Judge Reinhardt’s written opinion alleging homosexual marriage is protected under the 14th amendment. In fact, most of those posting fail to realize, or could care less, that Judge Reinhardt never demonstrated from the debates of the 39th Congress which framed the 14th Amendment that it forbids a State to make distinctions based upon sex when issuing a marriage license. Instead, Judge Reinhardt decided to use his office of public trust to pretend the 14th Amendment means what he thinks it should mean rather than enforcing what the amendment means as it was understood by those who framed and ratified the 14th Amendment. And this notion, that a judge or Justice in deciding a constitutional question may ignore the very intentions as expressed and understood by the people when adopting a particular provision of our Constitution, and assert the provision means what that judge or Justice thinks the provisions should mean, is a very, very dangerous path for the American people to accept and tolerate. To do so not only violates the fundamental rules of constitutional construction, but encourages judges and Justices to totally exceed their authority, ignore the people’s reasoning for adopting each provision of our Constitution, and supplant their own ideas of what the Constitution should mean as court ordered law!
Are we to forget this very notion, that judges and Justices are clothed with authority to declare the Constitution means what they believe it should mean was recently used by our Supreme Court to allow the force of government to be used to take the property of one individual and transfer it to another in a profit making business venture? Of course, I am referring to the Kelo decision when Justice Stevens brazenly and with impunity tells us he will ignore the meaning of “public use” as it was understood when our Constitution was adopted, and he will impose what he believes the words “public use” should mean ___ justifying his court ordered tyranny because of the “evolving needs of society”!
Justice Stevens in delivering the opinion of the Court writes:
“… while many state courts in the mid-19th century endorsed "use by the public" as the proper definition of public use, that narrow view steadily eroded over time. Not only was the "use by the public" test difficult to administer (e.g., what proportion of the public need have access to the property? at what price?),7 but it proved to be impractical given the diverse and always evolving needs of society.8 Accordingly, when this Court began applying the Fifth Amendment to the States at the close of the 19th century, it embraced the broader and more natural interpretation of public use as "public purpose.”
The irrefutable fact is, the people did not erode the meaning of “public use” via an appropriate constitutional amendment process which is the only lawful way to change the meaning of words in our Constitution. The Court took it upon itself to do for the people what they did not willingly and knowingly do for themselves with a constitutional amendment as required by our Constitution. The Court, acting beyond its lawful duty shamelessly appealed to the “evolving needs of society” to justify its own “broader and more natural interpretation” of “public use”, and to allow personal property being taken from one individual and transferred to another for a profit making business venture.
On the other hand, Justice Thomas, in his dissenting opinion, observes the time honored rules of constitutional construction and carefully documents the meaning of the words “public use” as they were understood during the time the Constitution was adopted. After providing sufficient documentation concerning the meaning of “public use” as understood during our Constitution making, Justice Thomas then concludes:
”
The Court relies almost exclusively on this Court's prior cases to derive today's far-reaching, and dangerous, result. See ante, at 8-12. But the principles this Court should employ to dispose of this case are found in the Public Use Clause itself, not in Justice Peckham's high opinion of reclamation laws, see supra, at 11. When faced with a clash of constitutional principle and a line of unreasoned cases wholly divorced from the text, history, and structure of our founding document, we should not hesitate to resolve the tension in favor of the Constitution's original meaning. For the reasons I have given, and for the reasons given in Justice O'Connor's dissent, the conflict of principle raised by this boundless use of the eminent domain power should be resolved in petitioners' favor. I would reverse the judgment of the Connecticut Supreme Court.”
And what is the fundamental rule of constitutional construction regarding the meaning of words and phrases in our Constitution?
“Words or terms used in a constitution, being dependent on ratification by the people voting upon it, must be understood in the sense most obvious to the common understanding at the time of its adoption… (my emphasis), see: 16 Am Jur 2d Constitutional law, Meaning of Language
Unfortunately while shallow thinking people engage in endless and irrelevant postings instead of the legitimacy of the 9th Circuit Court’s opinion, the very fabric and meaning of our Constitution is being cleverly shredded by Judge Reinhardt who has decided to ignore the meaning of the 14th Amendment as it was understood by those who framed and ratified it, and he has supplanted as court ordered law what he believes the 14th Amendment should mean, just as Justice Stevens did when authorizing the theft of personal property by government. How sad it is to see that so many are oblivious or apathetic to our Constitution being subverted by those entrusted to preserve and protect it.
JWK
"The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges' views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice." -- Justice Hugo L. Black ( U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1886 - 1971) Source: Lecture, Columbia University, 1968
It is so sad to see that most of those who have entered the thread have ignored the topic of the thread which questions the legitimacy of Judge Reinhardt’s written opinion alleging homosexual marriage is protected under the 14th amendment. In fact, most of those posting fail to realize, or could care less, that Judge Reinhardt never demonstrated from the debates of the 39th Congress which framed the 14th Amendment that it forbids a State to make distinctions based upon sex when issuing a marriage license. Instead, Judge Reinhardt decided to use his office of public trust to pretend the 14th Amendment means what he thinks it should mean rather than enforcing what the amendment means as it was understood by those who framed and ratified the 14th Amendment. And this notion, that a judge or Justice in deciding a constitutional question may ignore the very intentions as expressed and understood by the people when adopting a particular provision of our Constitution, and assert the provision means what that judge or Justice thinks the provisions should mean, is a very, very dangerous path for the American people to accept and tolerate. To do so not only violates the fundamental rules of constitutional construction, but encourages judges and Justices to totally exceed their authority, ignore the people’s reasoning for adopting each provision of our Constitution, and supplant their own ideas of what the Constitution should mean as court ordered law!
Are we to forget this very notion, that judges and Justices are clothed with authority to declare the Constitution means what they believe it should mean was recently used by our Supreme Court to allow the force of government to be used to take the property of one individual and transfer it to another in a profit making business venture? Of course, I am referring to the Kelo decision when Justice Stevens brazenly and with impunity tells us he will ignore the meaning of “public use” as it was understood when our Constitution was adopted, and he will impose what he believes the words “public use” should mean ___ justifying his court ordered tyranny because of the “evolving needs of society”!
Justice Stevens in delivering the opinion of the Court writes:
“… while many state courts in the mid-19th century endorsed "use by the public" as the proper definition of public use, that narrow view steadily eroded over time. Not only was the "use by the public" test difficult to administer (e.g., what proportion of the public need have access to the property? at what price?),7 but it proved to be impractical given the diverse and always evolving needs of society.8 Accordingly, when this Court began applying the Fifth Amendment to the States at the close of the 19th century, it embraced the broader and more natural interpretation of public use as "public purpose.”
The irrefutable fact is, the people did not erode the meaning of “public use” via an appropriate constitutional amendment process which is the only lawful way to change the meaning of words in our Constitution. The Court took it upon itself to do for the people what they did not willingly and knowingly do for themselves with a constitutional amendment as required by our Constitution. The Court, acting beyond its lawful duty shamelessly appealed to the “evolving needs of society” to justify its own “broader and more natural interpretation” of “public use”, and to allow personal property being taken from one individual and transferred to another for a profit making business venture.
On the other hand, Justice Thomas, in his dissenting opinion, observes the time honored rules of constitutional construction and carefully documents the meaning of the words “public use” as they were understood during the time the Constitution was adopted. After providing sufficient documentation concerning the meaning of “public use” as understood during our Constitution making, Justice Thomas then concludes:
”
The Court relies almost exclusively on this Court's prior cases to derive today's far-reaching, and dangerous, result. See ante, at 8-12. But the principles this Court should employ to dispose of this case are found in the Public Use Clause itself, not in Justice Peckham's high opinion of reclamation laws, see supra, at 11. When faced with a clash of constitutional principle and a line of unreasoned cases wholly divorced from the text, history, and structure of our founding document, we should not hesitate to resolve the tension in favor of the Constitution's original meaning. For the reasons I have given, and for the reasons given in Justice O'Connor's dissent, the conflict of principle raised by this boundless use of the eminent domain power should be resolved in petitioners' favor. I would reverse the judgment of the Connecticut Supreme Court.”
And what is the fundamental rule of constitutional construction regarding the meaning of words and phrases in our Constitution?
“Words or terms used in a constitution, being dependent on ratification by the people voting upon it, must be understood in the sense most obvious to the common understanding at the time of its adoption… (my emphasis), see: 16 Am Jur 2d Constitutional law, Meaning of Language
Unfortunately while shallow thinking people engage in endless and irrelevant postings instead of the legitimacy of the 9th Circuit Court’s opinion, the very fabric and meaning of our Constitution is being cleverly shredded by Judge Reinhardt who has decided to ignore the meaning of the 14th Amendment as it was understood by those who framed and ratified it, and he has supplanted as court ordered law what he believes the 14th Amendment should mean, just as Justice Stevens did when authorizing the theft of personal property by government. How sad it is to see that so many are oblivious or apathetic to our Constitution being subverted by those entrusted to preserve and protect it.
JWK
"The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges' views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice." -- Justice Hugo L. Black ( U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1886 - 1971) Source: Lecture, Columbia University, 1968
Ender
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What is even sadder is those who fail to understand that the gov does not belong in marriage at all.
THAT is what we should be focusing on.
Sonny Tufts
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You're wrong if you believe Judge Reinhardt simply invented his equal protection analysis out of thin air instead of basing it on over a century of Supreme Court precedent applying the EP Clause to matters other than discrimination against African-Americans and in particular on the Court's decision in Windsor. You apparently want a lower court judge to ignore all this SCOTUS precedent and use an originalist approach that hasn't been adopted by a majority of the Court and that wasn't even argued by any of the parties in the case.
No doubt you also consider McLaughlin v. Florida and Loving v. Virginia (which invalidated anti-miscegenation laws) to be illegitimate, since at the time of the adoption of the 14th Amendment such laws were prevalent and were even declared constitutional by the Court in 1883.
No doubt you also consider McLaughlin v. Florida and Loving v. Virginia (which invalidated anti-miscegenation laws) to be illegitimate, since at the time of the adoption of the 14th Amendment such laws were prevalent and were even declared constitutional by the Court in 1883.
Acala
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I would say that every government employee has a duty to refrain from exceeding Constitutional authority no matter what SCOTUS says. Furthermore, every state has a duty to protect its citizens from Federal over-reaching through nullification and ultimately secession.
Sonny Tufts
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I don't think that worked out very well for Governor Faubus in 1957 or Governor Wallace in 1963.
The most fundamental rule of constitutional construction_adhereing to legisative intent!
I never suggested Reinhardt’s opinion came out of thin air. Let me assure you our Courts have been very active in ignoring the meaning of our Constitution’s legislative intent for many, many years and imposing its personal views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice as court ordered law. The purpose of me starting this thread is to document another instance of this type of judicial tyranny!
And with respect to the Loving decision, why would I believe it to be an illegitimate decision when the 14th Amendment was specifically adopted to forbid state laws which made distinctions based upon race.
Finally, and with regard to your comment about “an originalist approach”, the unavoidable truth is, when questions arise concerning the text of the Constitution, those question are to be resolved by the time honored rule of establishing the documented intentions under which the words in question were adopted. In the case of the 14th Amendment, a review of the 39th Congressional debates establishes the intentions of the lawmaker, which the court is then bound to observe as opposed to supplanting its own views on what the Amendment should mean. But don’t take my word for this, let us recall what our very own Supreme Court stated with reference to enforcing the intentions of the lawmaker:
In Hawaii v. Mankichi, 190 U.S. 197 (1903), our Supreme Court notes the cardinal rule to enforce the intention of the lawmaking power!
But there is another question underlying this and all other rules for the interpretation of statutes, and that is what was the intention of the legislative body? Without going back to the famous case of the drawing of blood in the streets of Bologna, the books are full of authorities to the effect that the intention of the lawmaking power will prevail even against the letter of the statute; or, as tersely expressed by Mr. Justice Swayne in 90 U.S. 380 :
"A thing may be within the letter of a statute and not within its meaning, and within its meaning, though not within its letter. The intention of the lawmaker is the law."
And the noteworthy Chancellor James Kent, in his Commentaries on American Law (1858) expresses the rule as follows:
"The Constitution is the act of the people, speaking in their original character, and defining the permanent conditions of the social alliance; and there can be no doubt on the point with us, that every act of the legislative power contrary to the true intent and meaning of the Constitution, is absolutely null and void.
In fact, The whole aim of construction, as applied to a provision of the Constitution, is to discover the meaning, to ascertain and give effect to the intent of its framers and the people who adopted it._____HOME BLDG. & LOAN ASS'N v. BLAISDELL, 290 U.S. 398 (1934)
I could provide countless other quotes to establish the fact that enforcing the documented intentions and beliefs under which our Constitution was adopted is one of the courts primary functions. Even our very own Congress is aware of this rule and emphasized it as follows:
"In construing the Constitution we are compelled to give it such interpretation as will secure the result intended to be accomplished by those who framed it and the people who adopted it...A construction which would give the phrase...a meaning differing from the sense in which it was understood and employed by the people when they adopted the Constitution, would be as unconstitutional as a departure from the plain and express language of the Constitution."_____ Senate Report No. 21, 42nd Cong. 2d Session 2 (1872), reprinted in Alfred Avins, The Reconstruction Amendments’ Debates 571 (1967)
Now, aside from the fact that honoring the intentions and beliefs under which our Constitution adopted ___ or any of its particular provisions ___ the important question to be answered here is, was the 14th Amendment intended to be a rule barring every imaginable type of discrimination? And the answer to this question is immediately answered by reviewing the 15th Amendment.
Is it not a fact that the 15th Amendment was adopted to prohibit a specific type of discrimination __discrimination at the voting booth ---forbidding discrimination at the voting booth to be based upon “race, color, or previous condition of servitude“, while sex was not included in the protection? How can the 14th Amendment be said to forbid a state to pass laws which discriminate if the 15th amendment had to be passed?
The argument that the 14th Amendment prohibits state discrimination based upon sex or “sexual orientation” as alleged by Judge Reinhardt is proven to be without foundation when reading the 19th Amendment which specifically forbids a new kind of discrimination. In this Amendment, the People of America as authorized under Article V of our Constitution decide to forbid sex discrimination, the discrimination mentioned by Judge Reinhardt, but only extend the prohibition with respect to the right to vote being “denied or abridged” on account of “sex”!
Finally, If Judge Reinhardt is correct in asserting the people of American have forbidden state legislation which makes distinctions based upon sex or sexual orientation when issuing a state marriage license, why was there an “Equal Rights Amendment” (ERA) proposed in 1972, specifically stating, Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.?
The truth is, the American People, as provided in Article V of our Constitution, intentionally rejected the Amendment, and, one of the reasons it was rejected was it would, if adopted, force the States to embrace homosexual marriage. I remember those arguments being made and ERA supporters saying it could not be used to force homosexual marriage upon the States,
And so, instead of Judge Reinhardt abiding by his oath to support and defend “this Constitution” he took it upon himself to falsely assert a state law making a distinction based upon sex when issuing a marriage license was a “violation of the Equal Protection Clause” of the 14th Amendment. But that conclusion is nothing more than what Judge Reinhardt believes the 14th Amendment should mean, and is not what the 14th Amendment actually states or was intended to accomplish.
If you have any evidence from the 39th Congressional debates supporting Reinhardt’s assertions, feel free to post that information here. But the truth is, Judge Reinhardt supplanted his personal views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice when declaring ”… defendants have failed to demonstrate that these laws further any legitimate purpose, they unjustifiably discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, and are in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.”
JWK
"The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges' views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice." -- Justice Hugo L. Black ( U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1886 - 1971) Source: Lecture, Columbia University, 1968
I never suggested Reinhardt’s opinion came out of thin air. Let me assure you our Courts have been very active in ignoring the meaning of our Constitution’s legislative intent for many, many years and imposing its personal views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice as court ordered law. The purpose of me starting this thread is to document another instance of this type of judicial tyranny!
And with respect to the Loving decision, why would I believe it to be an illegitimate decision when the 14th Amendment was specifically adopted to forbid state laws which made distinctions based upon race.
Finally, and with regard to your comment about “an originalist approach”, the unavoidable truth is, when questions arise concerning the text of the Constitution, those question are to be resolved by the time honored rule of establishing the documented intentions under which the words in question were adopted. In the case of the 14th Amendment, a review of the 39th Congressional debates establishes the intentions of the lawmaker, which the court is then bound to observe as opposed to supplanting its own views on what the Amendment should mean. But don’t take my word for this, let us recall what our very own Supreme Court stated with reference to enforcing the intentions of the lawmaker:
In Hawaii v. Mankichi, 190 U.S. 197 (1903), our Supreme Court notes the cardinal rule to enforce the intention of the lawmaking power!
But there is another question underlying this and all other rules for the interpretation of statutes, and that is what was the intention of the legislative body? Without going back to the famous case of the drawing of blood in the streets of Bologna, the books are full of authorities to the effect that the intention of the lawmaking power will prevail even against the letter of the statute; or, as tersely expressed by Mr. Justice Swayne in 90 U.S. 380 :
"A thing may be within the letter of a statute and not within its meaning, and within its meaning, though not within its letter. The intention of the lawmaker is the law."
And the noteworthy Chancellor James Kent, in his Commentaries on American Law (1858) expresses the rule as follows:
"The Constitution is the act of the people, speaking in their original character, and defining the permanent conditions of the social alliance; and there can be no doubt on the point with us, that every act of the legislative power contrary to the true intent and meaning of the Constitution, is absolutely null and void.
In fact, The whole aim of construction, as applied to a provision of the Constitution, is to discover the meaning, to ascertain and give effect to the intent of its framers and the people who adopted it._____HOME BLDG. & LOAN ASS'N v. BLAISDELL, 290 U.S. 398 (1934)
I could provide countless other quotes to establish the fact that enforcing the documented intentions and beliefs under which our Constitution was adopted is one of the courts primary functions. Even our very own Congress is aware of this rule and emphasized it as follows:
"In construing the Constitution we are compelled to give it such interpretation as will secure the result intended to be accomplished by those who framed it and the people who adopted it...A construction which would give the phrase...a meaning differing from the sense in which it was understood and employed by the people when they adopted the Constitution, would be as unconstitutional as a departure from the plain and express language of the Constitution."_____ Senate Report No. 21, 42nd Cong. 2d Session 2 (1872), reprinted in Alfred Avins, The Reconstruction Amendments’ Debates 571 (1967)
Now, aside from the fact that honoring the intentions and beliefs under which our Constitution adopted ___ or any of its particular provisions ___ the important question to be answered here is, was the 14th Amendment intended to be a rule barring every imaginable type of discrimination? And the answer to this question is immediately answered by reviewing the 15th Amendment.
Is it not a fact that the 15th Amendment was adopted to prohibit a specific type of discrimination __discrimination at the voting booth ---forbidding discrimination at the voting booth to be based upon “race, color, or previous condition of servitude“, while sex was not included in the protection? How can the 14th Amendment be said to forbid a state to pass laws which discriminate if the 15th amendment had to be passed?
The argument that the 14th Amendment prohibits state discrimination based upon sex or “sexual orientation” as alleged by Judge Reinhardt is proven to be without foundation when reading the 19th Amendment which specifically forbids a new kind of discrimination. In this Amendment, the People of America as authorized under Article V of our Constitution decide to forbid sex discrimination, the discrimination mentioned by Judge Reinhardt, but only extend the prohibition with respect to the right to vote being “denied or abridged” on account of “sex”!
Finally, If Judge Reinhardt is correct in asserting the people of American have forbidden state legislation which makes distinctions based upon sex or sexual orientation when issuing a state marriage license, why was there an “Equal Rights Amendment” (ERA) proposed in 1972, specifically stating, Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.?
The truth is, the American People, as provided in Article V of our Constitution, intentionally rejected the Amendment, and, one of the reasons it was rejected was it would, if adopted, force the States to embrace homosexual marriage. I remember those arguments being made and ERA supporters saying it could not be used to force homosexual marriage upon the States,
And so, instead of Judge Reinhardt abiding by his oath to support and defend “this Constitution” he took it upon himself to falsely assert a state law making a distinction based upon sex when issuing a marriage license was a “violation of the Equal Protection Clause” of the 14th Amendment. But that conclusion is nothing more than what Judge Reinhardt believes the 14th Amendment should mean, and is not what the 14th Amendment actually states or was intended to accomplish.
If you have any evidence from the 39th Congressional debates supporting Reinhardt’s assertions, feel free to post that information here. But the truth is, Judge Reinhardt supplanted his personal views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice when declaring ”… defendants have failed to demonstrate that these laws further any legitimate purpose, they unjustifiably discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, and are in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.”
JWK
"The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges' views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice." -- Justice Hugo L. Black ( U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1886 - 1971) Source: Lecture, Columbia University, 1968
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Your thinking is very much in line with a people determined to remain free!
”Submit to despotism for an hour and you concede the principle. John Adams said, in 1775, “Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud.” It is the only thing a people determined to be free can do. Republics have often failed, and have been succeeded by the most revolting despotisms; and always it was the voice of timidity, cowardice, or false leaders counseling submission, that led to the final downfall of freedom. It was the cowardice and treachery of the Senate of Rome that allowed the usurper to gain power, inch by inch, to overthrow the Republic. The history of the downfall of Republics is the same in all ages. The first inch that is yielded to despotism - the first blow, dealt at the Constitution, that is not resisted - is the beginning of the end of the nations ruin.” __ THE OLD GUARD, A MONTHLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE PRINCIPLES OF 1776 AND 1787.
JWK
If the America People do not rise up and defend their existing Constitution and the intentions and beliefs under which it was adopted, who is left to do so but the very people the Constitution was designed to control and regulate?
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