Tag Archives: 14th Amendment

local news, State news

Gay marriage may become campaign issue

Let’s play this out a few moves.

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to decide whether states can ban same-sex marriage. R.G. Ratcliffe, writing for Texas Monthly, thinks the court is likely to rule that statewide bans violate the U.S. Constitution.

So, what happens when county clerks are forced to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Texas?

Do they follow the law? Or do they resign, as was the case over in Roosevelt County, N.M., when that state legalized same-sex marriages.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/social-conservatives-want-special-session-gay-marriage

Suppose, then, that Randall County Clerk Renee Calhoun and Potter County Clerk Julie Smith decide to follow the law. Will they face a stout challenge — likely within the Republican Party, to which they both belong?

Does the gay marriage issue become a campaign wedge issue here in the Texas Panhandle’s two largest counties?

Texas voters some years ago approved a Texas constitutional amendment that reiterated what was already on the books. The state has a statute that declares that marriage must involve a man and a woman. But, by golly, the Legislature referred the amendment to the voters to ensure that they said “Hell yes!” to a ban on same-sex marriage.

I’m betting that Ratcliffe is correct, that the Supreme Court is going to make all of this moot when it rules that the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment cannot be violated.

I also am willing to bet that county clerks who issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples are going to face serious challenges in their next campaign for re-election.

Who would think a campaign for county clerk could be so, um, tumultuous?

 

 

legal news

Gay marriage to get big test

The U.S. Supreme Court is going to decide soon whether Americans have a constitutional right to marry someone of the same sex.

My guess is that if the conservative court majority is as “strict constructionist” as its members claim to be, the issue could be a slam dunk.

They’ll declare a ban on same-sex marriage to be in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

State courts and lower federal courts have been striking down state bans left and right. Texas’s own ban is among those that the courts have ruled violated someone’s constitutional rights.

The issue, as I see it, rests within the 14th Amendment, which guarantees Americans the right to “equal protection” under the law. It doesn’t specify that citizens need to be of a certain sexual orientation.

State bans have flouted, in my view, that constitutional guarantee. That is why the federal courts have stepped in.

So, the highest court in the land is set to decide this issue.

I remain perplexed by the notion of calling same-sex unions “marriage.” But that’s just me. I do not question the constitutionality of same-sex marriage.

Neither should the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.

legal news, national news, political news, religious news

State using religion to discriminate?

3 Comments

Indiana seems like a nice enough place, with nice people motivated to do nice things to and for others.

Why, then, does the state’s legislature send to Gov. Mike Pence a bill that allows people to possibly concoct a religious belief in order to discriminate against others?

Pence this past week signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which prevents someone from suing, say, a business owner from doing business with you based on the business owner’s religious beliefs.

Pay attention here: The bill is aimed squarely at gays and lesbian who could be denied service from those business owners.

http://mediamatters.org/video/2015/03/29/abcs-stephanopoulos-grills-gov-mike-pence-on-an/203077

Reaction to this law has been furious. Business owners across the nation have declared their intention to cease doing business in Indiana as long as the state sanctions discrimination against their employees. With the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four tournament set to be played in Indianapolis, there could be a serious backlash that inhibits the money the state hopes to earn.

This law looks for all the world — to me at least — as if the state is using “religious freedom” as a shield to protect those who wantonly discriminate against those who have a certain sexual orientation.

What we have here looks like a misuse of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which guarantees the right of those to hold whatever religious belief they wish. The state is suggesting the First Amendment takes precedence over the 14th Amendment, which guarantees all citizens “equal protection” under the state and federal laws.

Imagine a couple wanting, say, to buy a home. Can a lender refuse to loan the couple the money to buy the home simply by pulling the “religious freedom” statute out of thin air — or out of some bodily orifice, for that matter? The law, as I understand it, prohibits the gay couple from suing the lender because the law protects the lender from being hassled over his or her religious beliefs.

The appearance of using religious liberty and freedom as a pretext to allow overt discrimination is a disgrace.

religious news, State news

Oh … the hypocrisy of it all

You hear it from time to time in the debate over whether people should be allowed to marry someone of the same gender.

“Why, allowing same-sex marriage is going to destroy the institution of traditional marriage,” the narrative goes.

That’s what makes this little item so patently hilarious, except I’m not laughing.

Texas state Rep. Tony Tinderholt has filed a complaint against a state judge who ruled that two women could get married legally in Texas. Tinderholt, a Republican from the Fort Worth area, disputes the judge’s legal standing.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/03/01/texas-republican-whines-about-states-first-gay-marriage-has-been-married-five-times/

But here’s where it gets weird. Tinderholt is currently married to his fifth wife. He’s been divorced four times. I haven’t a clue as to whether Tinderholt has argued against gay marriage because of the destruction it allegedly brings to traditional marriage, but rest assured that plenty of others on his side of the debate have argued it.

While I remain a bit uneasy about the term “marriage” to describe a same-sex union, I understand fully the constitutional argument that no citizen should be denied basic human rights, such as those spelled in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; they guarantee every citizen “equal protection” under state and federal law.

I shall stipulate, though, that no time ever have my wife of more than 43 years and I have felt “threatened” by laws that allow same-sex couples to be married legally. Our marriage is as strong as it’s ever been and I have supreme confidence that we’re going to remain wedded for the duration.

I also am quite certain that millions of other traditional couples feel the same way as we do.

So, to see someone such as Rep. Tinderholt — lugging around his personal history of marital failure — argue against someone else’s rights under the law simply makes his argument laughable on its face.

 

national news, State news

When did we realize these bans were illegal?

A question comes to mind regarding the recent spate of court rulings against statewide bans on same-sex marriage.

The 14th Amendment, which includes the “equal protection clause,” was ratified in 1868. Why has it taken until just the recent past to realize that equal protection means all citizens are guaranteed such protection under the law?

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2015/02/texas-judge-rules-same-sex-marriage-ban-unconstitutional/

A Travis County probate judge recently ruled that the Texas ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Judge Guy Herman “ruled the state’s ban violated the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment,” according to the San Antonio Express-News.

The amendment has been on the books for 147 years! Only now has the issue come up as a reason to ban same-sex marriage.

It is true that gay couples have been largely hidden from public view for most of the history of the Republic. We didn’t have “gay pride rallies” at the turn of the 20th century, let alone in the middle of the 19th century. Same-sex couples lived in the shadows. They didn’t get married. They simply lived together, which was their right to do — except in some states, such as Texas, where it was actually illegal for same-sex couples (notably men) to be intimate; our state enforced something called an “anti-sodomy law” until it, too, was ruled unconstitutional.

So here we are now. Courts are ruling left and right that states cannot violate a civil right written into the U.S. Constitution just three years after the end of the Civil War.

It took us awhile to get to this point. But we’ve arrived. Finally.

 

legal news, national news

KKK spews same old hate message

3 Comments

Hold on a second! I thought I read a time or two that the Ku Klux Klan was seeking to remake its image, that it was going to a sort of “kinder, gentler” hate group.

I must have dreamt it. The KKK is reverting to form.

A Mississippi Klan chapter has issued what it said is a “call to arms” to protest a decision to allow same-sex marriages to occur next door in Alabama.

http://www.salon.com/2015/02/14/kkk_issues_call_to_arms_over_alabama_same_sex_marriage_ruling_partner/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Where I come from, a “call to arms” means what it says: that you are going to take up arms and fight someone — in this case, presumably the federal government. Also, where I come from, that sounds like sedition, which means to plot against the government, to mount an armed rebellion. And isn’t that an act of treason, punishable by, um, death?

A Ku Klux Klan grand dragon/serpent — a guy named Brent Waller — said this on a website post: “We as White Christians intend to see that no outside agitators bully or intimidate the White Christian majority in the State of Alabama. We salute those like the chief justice (Roy Moore) for standing against the Immoral, Ungodly and activist Federal Judges.”

How will they do that? Are they going to shoot someone?

Holy hate speech, Batman!

This nimrod needs to know that the federal judges who are ruling against statewide bans on same-sex marriage are acting totally within the law. The Constitution gives them authority to interpret the nation’s government framework, which they’re doing by declaring the 14th Amendment to the Constitution protects all Americans’ right to “equal protection” under the law. I will restate right here that all Americans means everyone, no matter their sexual orientation.

History has demonstrated time and again — for more than a century — that the Klan doesn’t believe in the Constitution.

 

 

legal news

Ready or not, Texas, same-sex marriage on its way

Get ready, Texas.

We’re about to be told that same-sex marriage is OK after all in the Lone Star State.

That vote we had to amend the Texas Constitution to say “not just ‘no,’ but ‘hell no!’ to same-sex marriage”? It’s going to be ruled in violation of the other Constitution, the federal document that governs all Americans. You see, it has an amendment that guarantees “equal protection under the laws” for all U.S. citizens. It doesn’t say just for those who want to marry those of the opposite sex; it means all, period.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/02/12/light-alabama-plaintiffs-tx-ask-relief/

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against an effort to overturn a lower-court ruling involving this issue in Alabama. That has court-watchers believing that other states whose same-sex marriage laws are in limbo at the moment now will be informed that, yes, they also must allow same-sex couples to get married.

One of the U.S. Supreme Court justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has said publicly that all Americans had better get used to the idea of same-sex marriage becoming legal in this country.

I remain somewhat conflicted on this issue. I dislike using the term “marriage” to define same-sex relationships. Being an old-fashioned kind of fellow, I remain a bit reluctant to climb on board fully. That all said, I do understand what the federal Constitution’s 14th Amendment says about equal protection.

Therefore, I believe it should be legalized purely on the grounds that the Founders understood that all citizens need certain guarantees written into the nation’s governing framework.

Texas remains one of 50 states, all of which are subject to federal law. Thus, we’d better prepare ourselves for the inevitable change in the way we view marriage.

 

 

legal news, national news

'Bama gay marriage ban struck down

An interesting back story may be developing with the latest federal judicial order striking down same-sex marriage in yet another of our 50 states.

Alabama’s same-sex marriage ban has been ruled unconstitutional by U.S. District Judge Callie V.S. Granade, who ruled in favor of a lesbian couple that had married in California, moved to Alabama and sought to have the state recognize the adoption of their son.

http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/27927923/federal-judge-rules-alabama-same-sex-marriage-ban-unconstitutional

Where’s the back story?

Judge Granade was appointed to the federal bench by Republican President George W. Bush, a noted opponent of same-sex marriage.

Here lies the beauty, in my view, of the federal judicial system. Judges get lifetime appointments and that frees many of them from the raw political pressure that often mounts against, say, judges who are elected on partisan ballots.

The federal judge who ruled the Texas same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional is a Barack Obama appointee and some on the right have dismissed her ruling as the work of a partisan hack.

What about Judge Granade’s ruling, which like the rest of the state laws that have been struck down, was based on the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment provision that guarantees “equal protection” under the law for all U.S. citizens? The couple in question here, Cari Searcy and Kimberly McKeand, fit the bill as true-blue, red-blooded American citizens.

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, also a Republican, is going to determine whether to appeal the ruling.

Well, he ought to wait on another court — the U.S. Supreme Court — which will hear arguments in a few weeks on another case involving this issue. It will determine before the term ends this summer on whether state bans violate that pesky 14th Amendment.

Let’s not bemoan, meanwhile, these rulings by “unelected judges.” They’re unelected for a good reason.

 

legal news, national news, political news

10th vs. 14th amendments in gay marriage hearing

The U.S. Supreme Court is going to decide the fate of same-sex marriage in the United States.

Good luck, justices.

At issue are two questions: Whether states must allow same-sex couples to marry and whether states must recognize same-sex marriages that take place out-of-state. The case will decide the fates of same-sex marriage bans in Tennessee, Michigan, Kentucky and Ohio.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/supreme-court-to-decide-if-states-can-ban-gay-marriage/ar-AA8gjVE

Here is where I believe the case should turn: Which amendment to the U.S. Constitution has more sway in deciding this matter, the 10th or the 14th?

The 10th is the final amendment outlining the Bill of Rights. It says: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserves to the states respectively, or to the people.”

That’s pretty clear, yes? It means the states have power not reserved by the Constitution for the federal government.

OK, then came the 14th Amendment, ratified not long after the Civil War. It’s much lengthier and covers a lot of issues relating to rights of citizenship. But at the end of Section 1, it states that no state “shall 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.”

Granted, the nine men and women of the nation’s highest court know a lot more about the law and the Constitution than I do, but my reading of the issue at hand is pretty clear. I believe the 14th Amendment trumps the 10th.

The issue as I see it is whether gay couples have the same right to marry as heterosexual couples. The Constitution, as federal judges have been ruling already, says they do. The Constitution lays out clearly that citizens shall not be deprived of “equal protection.” If that language in the 14th Amendment didn’t exist, I suppose you could argue that states — such as Texas — have the legal standing to ban same-sex marriage.

I do believe, though, that the language contained within the 14th Amendment makes it impossible for states to enact laws that override the Constitution.

There well may be some nuance that I’m missing. If it’s buried deep inside the language of the nation’s founding document, I’m sure the justices will find it.

I just don’t see how they can look past the clear and explicit language contained in the equal protection clause.

 

legal news

Feds aren't seeking to create 'moral standard'

Here’s a shocker: The Texas Legislature and its Republican super-majority in the House of Representatives is likely to consider legislation that blocks any effort to lift the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.

OK, it’s not a shocker. I was kidding.

State Rep. Cecil Bell, R-Magnolia, has filed House Bill 623 that would prevent the federal courts or the Congress from legalizing same-sex marriage.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/01/08/no-salaries-for-recognizing-gay-marriage-bill-says/

According to the Texas Tribune: “The federal government is trying to act to create moral standards, and that’s just not acceptable,” Bell said.

Let’s hold on for a moment.

I do not believe the feds are seeking to “create moral standards” with court rulings striking down same-sex marriage laws in several states. The impetus behind the rulings — in every instance — has been the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which grants full rights of citizenship to every American citizen. Full rights of citizenship means that every American is guaranteed “equal protection” under the law.

That means, quite clearly, that if you love someone who happens to be of the same sex as you, the Constitution gives you the right — as a citizen — to marry that individual, just as any citizen is able to marry someone of the opposite gender.

The Tribune reports: “The bill also requires state courts to dismiss legal actions that challenge a provision of the bill and award legal costs and attorney fees to the defendants. Citing the 11th Amendment, which gives states sovereign immunity, the bill also says the state isn’t subject to a lawsuit for complying with the act — regardless of a contradictory federal ruling.”

But wait, says a gay-rights group. Again, from the Tribune: “Daniel Williams, a legislative specialist for the gay rights group Equality Texas, said the bill would go against legal precedent.

“’This bill is retreading very well-established precedent here. In 1869, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Texas v. White that no, Texas does may not ignore federal law whenever it wants,’ Williams said. ‘Beyond it ignoring federal law, it would actually punish state employees who follow the law.’”

The setting of a “moral standard” is not at issue here. Adhering to federal law is what’s at stake.