Tag Archives: 14th Amendment

national news, Uncategorized

Governor allows clerks to hide their names

AP_kim_davis_mm_150901_4x3_992

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin took office and immediately issued a series of executive orders. Let’s look at one of them.

It no longer requires county clerks to put their names on marriage licenses. Can we hear an “amen!” from Kim Davis, the Rowan County clerk who refused to do her job as required by law, and her oath, on the grounds that issuing such licenses to gay couples violated her religious beliefs?

Bevin’s order intends to protect the religious rights of county clerks who object to issuing the licenses on religious grounds.

I believe the main issue here is whether county clerks — who take an oath to protect and defend their state and federal constitutions — are obligated to marry anyone who seeks a license. The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees that all citizens are guaranteed equal rights and protection under the law and it makes no stipulations about their sexual orientation.

If Gov. Bevin’s order now guarantees that all Kentucky residents can now seek and receive legal marriage licenses, without regard to whom they are marrying, then he’s done the right thing.

 

national news, religious news

Feds trump states on gay marriage

same-sex-marriage

The issue over whether a county clerk in a particular state has the authority to deny marriage licenses to gay couples brings up the time-honored debate over states’ rights.

Rowan County (Ky.) Clerk Kim Davis stopped issuing marriage licenses because she opposes — on religious grounds — sanctioning same-sex marriages.

A federal judge found her in contempt of court and threw her into a jail. Davis is appealing her incarceration to the Kentucky governor.

Does the state have the right to deny a marriage license to a gay couple? Here’s my view on it.

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees equal protection under the law to all citizens. The U.S. Constitution is the governing framework for the federal government. The Constitution, therefore, is the pre-eminent law of the land.

The U.S. Supreme Court this year ruled, thus, that same-sex marriage is a protected right under the Constitution. Therefore, states must follow the law as prescribed in that document.

So, when someone takes an oath to “uphold the Constitution,” he or she is bound by that oath to perform the duties of his or her office.

The federal law, in this instance, trumps state law.

 

political news

‘Anchor babies’ becomes campaign buzz phrase

anchor-babies-1024x508

Anchor babies. That’s the newest catch-phrase that is drawing some criticism for the way it sounds in describing some U.S. citizens.

Donald Trump is using the term. So is Jeb Bush. The two Republican presidential candidates — who’ve been batting each other around lately — seem to agree on the use of the term.

It’s meant to define individuals who were born in the United States to foreign nationals. They become U.S. citizens by virtue of their birthright — as prescribed in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

But get this: Three other GOP presidential candidates actually are “anchor babies.” Marco Rubio was born in the United States to Cuban parents. Ted Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father. And then there’s Bobby Jindal, born in the U.S. to Indians. All three men are “anchor babies.”

Trump wants to repeal the 14th Amendment that grants U.S. citizenship to “anchor babies.” Rubio opposes Trump’s view about birthright citizenship.

It’s another issue that’s threatening to split the GOP field.

 

national news, political news

Birthright citizenship: tough to eliminate

2 Comments

baby citizens

A part of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says this:

“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.”

It’s clear, yes? Everyone born in this country is a citizen of this country.

Why, then, do some Republicans — maybe most of them — want to amend the Constitution to single out those who have the misfortune of being born to individuals who are here illegally?

GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump wants to end the “birthright citizenship” clause of the 14th Amendment. He’s led the amen chorus on that one. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has joined him.

But as Eric Greider of Texas Monthly points out, some Republican presidential candidates are standing for the Constitution. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry is one of them; so is U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida; same for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

What do these men have in common? They all have been elected in states with substantial Latino populations, which of course is the audience being targeted by those who want to repeal birthright citizenship.

If we get rid of this citizenship provision, we will have to amend the Constitution. Don’t conservatives generally stand foursquare behind the nation’s governing document?

 

 

legal news, political news

Where was this voice on gay marriage?

Of all the voices heard across the United States of America that were commenting — pro and con — on the historic Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage, one voice was conspicuously silent.

It belonged to the former vice president of the United States, Richard B. Cheney.

He’s been quick to lambaste the liberals ever since leaving office in January 2009. He calls Barack Obama the “worst president of my lifetime.” He’s leveled heavy fire on congressional Democrats on any number of foreign and domestic issues.

On this one, the issue that resonates on both sides of the political divide — for vastly different reasons, of course — he’s been silent.

The gay marriage debate hits the former VP squarely where he feels it. His daughter, Mary, is married to a woman.

In this instance, Vice President Cheney’s silence has been remarkable.

He dare not rile the base of his Republican Party, the folks who still adore him for his staunch conservative views, by endorsing how the Supreme Court has affirmed the Constitution’s equal protection clause contained in the 14th Amendment.

Then again, he dare not criticize the court out of concern that critics might jump all over him for condemning his very own daughter — who I am absolutely certain he loves without condition. Fathers do that, you know.

Man, it’s a dicey world when you have to decide which brand of loyalty wins out — loyalty to family or to political principle.

My hope is that family takes precedence.

 

legal news

Hats off to local county clerks

If I were wearing a hat at this moment, I’d tip it to two Texas county clerks: Randall County’s Renee Calhoun and Potter County’s Julie Smith.

All they did was agree to adhere to their oath of office and will issue marriage licenses to gay couples who seek them.

This is in accordance with a Supreme Court decision this past week that legalized gay marriage across the nation. It also resists the notion that they could refuse to issue licenses to same-sex couples, which Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton authorized them to do.

Given the extreme partisan divide across the land, it’s fair to make this point: Both women, Calhoun and Smith, are Republican county clerks. The state AG also is a Republican. They are defying the state’s attorney general, who contends that clerks could object if they had religious objections to issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The two county clerks plan to issue the licenses as soon as they get some paperwork matters straightened out.

Good for them.

Paxton’s decision to allow the clerks to refuse issuing the licenses has met with mixed response from county clerks across the state.

The attorney general’s approach to this matter is wrong-headed, as it seeks to allow these elected officials to disavow the oath of office they took, which is to follow the laws of the nation and the state.

The Supreme Court has determined — as the final arbiter of what is constitutional and what is not — that state bans on same-sex marriage violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Thus, gay marriage is now legal.

legal news

The court’s logic on gay marriage makes sense

1 Comment

I’ve never claimed to be — nor will I ever make such a claim to be — the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.

At times I can be slow on the uptake. I occasionally lack intuition.

But the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision legalizing gay marriage makes crystal clear sense to me. It’s about the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. That is it — as near as I can tell.

Thus, the hysteria being expressed by Texas Republican leaders — along with other GOP honchos across this great country — is boggling my mind.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/06/26/cruz-perry-react-gay-marriage-ruling/

Of all the things I’ve heard from the opponents of the ruling, the most hysterical response belongs — and this is zero surprise to many of us — Sen. Ted Cruz, one of a thundering herd of candidates running for the GOP nomination in 2016.

As the Texas Tribune reports: “U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, the first candidate for the GOP nomination for president, said the gay marriage ruling puts religious liberty ‘front and center in the target of the federal government.’ He called it the ‘very definition of lawlessness. It is naked and unadulterated judicial activism.'”

Sheesh. Judicial activism? I wonder how he ranks the Citizens United ruling of 2010, which declared that corporations and rich fat cats could give unlimited amounts of campaign money, tilting the political playing field to the distinct advantage of those with the most money. Oh, but that’s another story.

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says this, in part: “… 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.”

You know what that means to me? It means that states cannot deny someone the ability to marry whomever they love. It means to me that the U.S. Constitution, the one that all politicians swear to “protect and defend” is the law of the land. It means that all citizens shall not be denied “equal protection of the laws.”

Can it be any clearer than that?

The Supreme Court upheld the U.S. Constitution in a tightly worded majority opinion. It said that states cannot bar people from marrying someone if that someone happens to be of the same gender.

Judicial activism?

If I can understand what the court said and meant, why can’t The Cruz Missile? He’s the one with the Harvard law degree.

legal news

Kennedy channels Blackmun and makes history

It’s always risky to put too fine a point on some historical events, but today’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage in all 50 states tells me that the court has issued a ruling that is going to change the nation’s landscape … forever.

We can give credit — although some will assess blame — on one justice. That would be Anthony Kennedy, a normally conservative justice who sided with the liberals on the court and wrote the 5-4 majority opinion legalizing gay marriage.

Game, set and match? Not by a long shot.

Kennedy’s role, though, does have an interesting parallel with another justice from another time — with whom he served for five years on the same Supreme Court.

Harry Blackmun was selected to the court in 1971 by a conservative president, Richard Nixon; Kennedy joined the court in 1988 when another conservative president, Ronald Reagan, nominated him.

Blackmun eventually would veer far from where President Nixon thought he’d travel as he served on the highest court in the land. Blackmun became one of the court’s more liberal members.

In January 1973, he authored a landmark ruling that made abortion legal in the United States. Roe v. Wade was a case out of Texas in which the court overturned a Texas law that made getting an abortion a felony offense. Blackmun’s opinion stated that women essentially were entitled to control their own reproductive capacity. The 7-2 ruling set the stage for a debate that hasn’t let up over the course of the past 42 years, but it was a huge decision.

The man on the hot seat now is Kennedy, who remains a conservative jurist. But on this issue, gay marriage, he has decided — along with the court’s liberal wing — that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, with its equal protection clause, trumps states’ reluctance to allow gay couples to marry.

I doubt strongly we’re going to see Justice Kennedy become a flaming liberal in the wake of this ruling. He just happens to be right — and courageous — in making this decision.

Just as Roe v. Wade changed the landscape in early 1973, today’s ruling on gay marriage sets the stage for another gigantic sea change across the nation.

I wish I was a fly on Justice Kennedy’s wall when he talked this over with his court colleagues and his staff as he pondered how he would write this Earth-shattering opinion. Something tells me he heard the late Justice Blackmun’s voice.

 

legal news

14th Amendment means what it says

Well, it’s been an Earth-shaking couple of days at the Supreme Court of the United States, don’t you think?

First, the court upholds the Affordable Care Act, guaranteeing health insurance for all Americans.

Then today comes a ruling that makes gay marriage legal in every state in the Union.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/246249-scalia-gay-marriage-decision-shows-americas-ruler-is-supreme

Today’s ruling is going to cause considerable apoplexy among political conservatives, some of whom now are saying the Supreme Court overstepped its bounds. Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the dissenters in today’s ruling, said the nation is now being governed by a majority of justices.

Let’s hold on here.

The ruling tosses out statewide bans on gay marriage on the basis of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the document we use to establish a governing framework for the entire nation.

States’ rights? I believe the federal Constitution trumps those rights. The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment means what it says, that all citizens are guaranteed the right to “equal protection under the law,” which means that if gay citizens want to marry someone of the same gender, they are entitled under the law to do exactly that.

Is the battle over? Not even close.

It’s going to shift to the issue of religious liberty, where individuals will argue that their faith and their religious opposition to same-sex marriage also is guaranteed under the First Amendment. Some Republican candidates for president are calling for a constitutional amendment to make same-sex marriage illegal; good luck with that, as the 14th Amendment stands as the protector of all Americans’ rights to equal treatment under the law.

The court has done what it had to do. It has affirmed what the U.S. Constitution declares in guaranteeing every American the right to marry who they love — no matter what.

 

legal news

Next up for Supremes? Gay marriage

Given that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the Affordable Care Act, with two conservative justices joining the liberals to form a majority coalition, it is fair to speculate about the gay marriage ruling that’s coming up.

My trick knee is throbbing and it’s telling me the court is going to declare that gay couples can legally be married.

What’s more, if conservatives think they’re angry now at Chief Justice John Roberts’s ruling in favor of the ACA, wait to see the reaction if he decides that the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause applies to gay couples.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/06/18/cruz-courts-evangelical-voters/

Republicans, such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, say that religious liberty is under attack. Cruz, who’s running for the GOP presidential nomination, told the Faith and Freedom Coalition: “I would encourage everyone here to be lifting up in prayer the court that they not engage in an act of naked and lawless judicial activism, tearing down the marriage laws adopted pursuant to the Constitution.”

There he goes again, using that word “lawless.”

The case under consideration deals with whether a gay couple can be married legally in one state and have it recognized in another. Federal judges have overturned state bans on gay marriage, declaring that such bans violate the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law for all citizens. Gay people are citizens, too.

The court surprised a lot of Americans — including me — by upholding the ACA.

I’m sensing a less-surprising outcome on the gay marriage issue.

The reaction, though, could be ferocious.