Tag Archives: U.S. Constitution

Uncategorized

States' rights or federal authority over marriage?

1 Comment

The debate over same-sex marriage keeps roiling.

I continue to straddle the fence on whether to endorse the notion of full “marriage” for same-sex couples, even though my view of it is “evolving” toward favoring it. I do understand the reason that federal courts are tossing out states’ prohibitions against same-sex couples tying the knot, as in getting married.

The argument against the courts getting involved usually centers on states’ rights. Foes of same-sex marriage — or “marriage equality,” as proponents call it — keep harping on a misconstrued notion that since sexual orientation isn’t mentioned specifically in the U.S. Constitution that judges have no jurisdiction or legal standing to comment on these issues.

The latest such contention came from an editorial published Sunday in my local newspaper, the Amarillo Globe-News. “The 14th Amendment (read it) does not specifically mention marriage — gay or straight,” the editorial notes. OK, I then read the amendment, for the umpteenth time. Here’s part of what it says: “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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States …” It goes on at the end of that section to say states cannot “deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

No, the amendment doesn’t mention gay marriage. I’d bet some serious dough, however, that the founders deliberately intended to include all citizens regardless of any orientation — sexual or religious, to name just two — under the equal protection clause. Gay couples are seeking to be recognized as being equally entitled to all the rights guaranteed straight couples. That’s a fairly uncomplicated proposal. I’m quite certain the U.S. Constitution covers it nicely in that pesky 14th Amendment.

Texas’s state constitutional amendment “abridges” those rights, a federal court judge has ruled. The ruling is under appeal. Gay marriage isn’t legal in Texas, at least not yet.

This curious argument by foes of “marriage equality” that states’ rights trump the U.S. Constitution on issues not delineated by the founders doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

I’m guessing the surest way for those who oppose same-sex marriage to have the practice banned entirely in this country is to campaign for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that supersedes the 14th Amendment.

Good luck with that. A majority of Americans now favors same-sex marriage.

Me? I’m still grappling with it.

Uncategorized

Talking past each other on religion

1 Comment

One of the frustrations I encounter occasionally when I debate the issue of our country’s founding is that my friends and I talk past each other when we disagree on this particular matter.

The recent Supreme Court ruling that sanctions sectarian prayer at public meetings provided that example.

I agree with the court’s ruling on constitutional grounds. I would prefer, though, that public meetings would begin with ecumenical prayers — and not prayers lifted directly to those of specific faith, notably Christian.

I make that point as a practicing Christian, OK?

Recently, I took note of the founders’ desire to create what I’ve called a “secular nation.” My point is that the Constitution contains an amendment that prohibits the establishment of a state religion, but also ensures that Americans shall be free to worship as they please.

Several of my friends out there in Blogger Land took issue with that view. They contend that the founders were men of faith and that they intended the nation to be based on “Judeo-Christian principles.”

Well, I don’t disbelieve any of that. It’s debatable, of course, that some of the key founders were devout Christians. Many historians have debated whether, say, Thomas Jefferson was a “deist,” or someone who believed in a more universal God. It’s been speculated that he believed in a holy deity, but did not necessarily believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross to win our forgiveness for our sins.

I only can rely on what I know to be contained within the Constitution.

It does not contain the words “Christian,” or “Christianity,” or “Jesus.” The founders wrote the First Amendment and contained the religious freedom clause in its very first provision. Did they debate whether to establish a state religion? Surely they did. They settled, though, on a government framework that is decidedly non-religious.

What’s more, the founders also wrote in one of its constitutional articles that there should be no religious test for those seeking any public office. What does that mean? It means that you cannot require candidates to be of any particular faith, nor can you even demand candidates to believe in any faith at all.

Thus, by my definition of the term, the United States is a secular nation. We are governed by laws written my mortal, fallible and flawed human beings.

Despite their flaws, the founders created a nation that — absent any requirement to worship a particular faith — has emerged as among the most religious of any nation on Planet Earth.

It is because we are granted us the freedom to worship as we please, or not worship at all.

May I have an “amen”?

Uncategorized

Elect federal judges? Oh, please!

Many of those on the right are quite fond of criticizing “unelected federal judges” who issue rulings that go against their world view.

What, then, is their alternative? Do they want to elect those who sit on the federal bench? Do they wish to do away with the federal judiciary?

I mention this because the U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld a University of Michigan policy that disallows affirmative action practices when considering who the school should admit. Did those on the left issue similar cries against those “unelected judges”? I didn’t hear any.

And yet, when judges keep striking down states’ bans on same-sex marriage, the cries go out from those who think the federal judiciary is overreaching when it declares states cannot write laws that violate U.S. constitutional provisions, such as the one that provides for “equal protection” under the law, regardless of sexual orientation.

Perhaps my favorite criticism of the high court came when it ruled 5-4 to uphold the Affordable Care Act. The ruling was narrowly defined and it was decided by a single vote, when Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the majority to keep the ACA intact. The criticism — from the right, of course — went something like this: The law should be tossed out because a narrow majority on the Supreme Court voted to keep it, and that the one-vote majority really didn’t mean the law is constitutional.

The founders had it exactly right when they empowered the president with the authority to appoint judges to the bench for life. They sought to de-politicize the federal bench by disallowing the election of federal judges.

States, of course, retain the right to elect judges. Texas even elects judges on partisan ballots, meaning that judicial candidates of one party has a built-in advantage over candidates of the other party. In Texas, that means if you’re a Republican, you’re in; it used to be the other way around, when Democrats were dominant.

Either way, good judges from the “out” party are kicked out simply because they are of the wrong political persuasion.

The federal judiciary, from the Supreme Court on down, functions precisely as the framers intended for it.

Uncategorized

Texas gay-marriage ban struck down

Was there ever any doubt that the federal judiciary would catch up with Texas’s ban on same-sex marriage?

It did so in equally conservative states such as Oklahoma and Utah. Now it has happened in Texas.

The sea change is now lapping at our front door.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/federal-judge-strikes-down-texas-gay-marriage-ban-n39466

U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia struck down the same-sex marriage ban — which voters approved by an overwhelming majority in a 2005 election to amend the Texas Constitution. Garcia ruled in favor of a gay couple that wanted to be married in Texas, but couldn’t given the state’s prohibition.

The ruling has been put on hold pending a sure-fire appeal by the state. Gov. Rick Perry vows to fight the ruling, as will Attorney General Greg Abbott (who wants to be the next governor).

It seems increasingly inevitable that the federal courts are going to uphold citizens’ rights, under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, to “equal protection of the laws.” By “equal,” gay-rights advocates and their political allies argue persuasively that bans on gay citizens’ right to marry the person they love deprives them of the rights of full citizenship granted to them by the Constitution.

Governors such as Perry, however, argue that the 10th Amendment carries greater weight, that the states have the constitutional right to enact their own laws that aren’t in direct conflict with federal law.

Let’s have this debate.

Setting aside my own personal qualms about redefining the term marriage — which my American Heritage Dictionary says is “The legal union of a man and a woman as husband and wife” — I totally understand why this issue is turning the nation upside-down.

Judges are looking at this issue from a constitutional standpoint and determining that the Constitution is unambiguous about who gets all the rights of citizenship. There cannot be a separate standard for people of certain sexual orientations. In a way that I am still trying to understand more clearly in my head and my heart, I get how the judges are ruling on this matter.

What’s more, the radio talk-show blowhards and others on the right and far right should not even try to suggest that we elect the federal judiciary, or that we put term limits on these individuals, or that we somehow water down the power of presidents to appoint these jurists. The system works just fine the way it’s set up. Leave it alone and debate these issues on their merits.

So now the fight has come to Texas. The state is going to take this matter to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Stay tuned. This fight is going to get very interesting.

Uncategorized

Church and state do need separation

1 Comment

Occasionally discussions about blog posts do get out of hand, or they twist off into unintended directions.

Such was the case involving a recent item I posted on this blog involving the teaching of creationism in Texas public schools. Here’s the link:

http://highplainsblogger.wordpress.com/2014/01/31/creationism-has-no-place-in-classroom/

But in the comments responding to the blog as it appeared on Facebook, a couple of the respondents decided to declare that the Constitution doesn’t state categorically that there must be a “separation of church and state.”

I’d like to clear the air a bit on this matter.

I agree that the Constitution doesn’t use the words “church and state separation.” But as with a lot of principles contained in that wonderful document, the interpretations of what it actually says are quite clear.

The First Amendment says, among other things, that Congress shall make no laws that establish a state religion. I’ve read it, oh, about a bazillion times in my life. I know what the Founders meant when they wrote that. They intended to keep church business out of state business. They didn’t want our government to be dictated by religious principles.

They created a secular nation.

There well might have been plenty of debate among the Founders about whether to allow a state religion. It doesn’t matter, in my view, what they debated. What matters now, more than two centuries later, is what they approved when they sent the Constitution out for ratification by the 13 states that comprised the United States of America.

Thus, church and state separation is implied in the Constitution’s First Amendment, just as the “right of privacy” is implied in the Fourth Amendment.

What’s more, Texas happens to be one of 50 states that now comprise the U.S. of A., even though it once seceded with tragic consequences. My point about the candidates for Texas lieutenant governor wanting to teach creationism in our public schools still stands.

Teach science in schools and religion in church — and keep church and state separate.

Uncategorized

U.S. a ‘Christian nation’? Hardly

Ron Reagan has fanned the flames of anger by recording a radio ad in which he proclaims himself to be an “unabashed atheist.”

He’s signed on to the Freedom From Religion Foundation and has declared his disgust with those who keep interjecting religion into public policy discussion.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/26/ronald-reagan-son_n_4344364.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037

OK, here’s where I’ll make a couple of disclaimers.

One is that I am not an atheist. I was baptized a Christian as a baby and am now more of a believer in Jesus Christ than I’ve ever been.

The other is that I believe Reagan — the younger son of the 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan — happens to be correct in asserting that the United States is a secular nation.

I’m not going to get into bashing others today; it’s a vow I made the other day about commenting on Thanksgiving. I intend to keep it positive — at least for the remainder of this day.

I merely want to refer to the U.S. Constitution, the document that establishes the framework for this nation’s greatness.

I believe the founders mentioned religion precisely twice in that document.

The first time is in Article VI. There, they said officeholders shall swear to uphold the Constitution, then they added: “but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

The second time is when they got around to establishing the Bill of Rights. The very First Amendment in part says this: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof … ” The amendment goes on to give Americans the right to speak freely about the government, it allows for a free press, gives citizens the right to assemble “peaceably” and to “petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

You’ll notice that in the First Amendment, the founders laid out the religion part first. Why is that? I only can surmise that they did so because their forebears had come here to escape religious persecution. They did not want to told they had to worship a certain way. They wanted freedom from all of that, so they set sail for the New World, where they could be free to worship — or not worship — as they pleased.

I also believe the founders were guided by religious principles. They did refer to “the Creator” when they wrote the Declaration of Independence. I hasten to add, though, that the reference is to a universal deity — and not necessarily a Christian deity.

Ron Reagan’s declaration speaks to the trend in recent decades to keep insisting that the United States is a “Christian nation.” It isn’t. It’s a secular nation with no national religion. Our founders sought to separate the church from the state.

Moreover, to those who keep insisting that the words “church and state separation” do not appear in the Constitution, I only can refer them to the First Amendment. I know what it means. So do they.

And I give thanks for the founders’ wisdom in ensuring our government should be free from religious doctrine.

Uncategorized

‘Birther’ issue won’t go away

Try as they will, my Republican friends cannot seem to shake themselves loose from the “birther” nonsense that dogged President Obama during his first term and disappeared the moment he was re-elected in November 2012.

Why do they want to get rid of this issue? Because one of their own is facing some of the same questions that hounded President Obama.

The Texas Tribune is reporting that Canada native Ted Cruz, the junior U.S. Republican senator from Texas, is fielding questions about his own eligibility to run for president — were he to decide to make the race in 2016. Cruz has been staging meetings back home in Texas during the congressional recess.

Cruz says — and his GOP faithful agree — that even though he isn’t a “natural born” U.S. citizen, he would qualify because his mother is an American. Thus, he is qualified automatically because of his parentage.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/08/23/cruzs-supporters-dont-question-eligibility/

That’s good enough for those who want him to run.

But given that political memories at times can be everlasting, it’s not necessarily good enough for those on the left who remember the torment their guy endured during his first presidential term.

Let me add that there is an important difference between Barack Obama and Ted Cruz: Obama actually was born in the United States of America; Cruz was born north of our border. Obama produced a birth certificate that proved his place of birth, while Cruz also has produced a document that shows he was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father.

Obama’s birth certificate hasn’t been accepted fully by every American with an interest in government. Some right-wing nut cases with loud voices (e.g., “The Donald” Trump) still question the document’s authenticity. No sense arguing with them about that.

Personally, I accept the notion that Cruz is eligible to run. I welcome his candidacy. I am on the verge of begging him to run for the presidency in ’16. I don’t want him to become the 45th president of the United States, but he would be bring some serious sizzle to a campaign that’s already shaping up to be a barn-burner.

Cruz would have to battle the lingering birther baloney. Maybe he can ask the 44th president for some tips on how to survive the onslaught.

Uncategorized

That settles it; Cruz can run for POTUS

Ted Cruz has done it. He’s released his birth certificate that says, by golly, that he was born in Canada to a Cuban father and an American mother.

The junior U.S. senator from Texas can seek the Republican Party presidential nomination in 2016 if he so chooses.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/317585-ted-cruz-releases-birth-certificate-

I’m glad he got that out of the way.

I also am hoping Cruz’s foes on the left — and you can count yours truly as one of them — do not keep harping on his birthplace as a reason he cannot run the way those on the right have kept doing as it regards the current president of the United States, Barack H. Obama.

Scholars have said that the constitutional clause “natural born citizen” includes those who are born abroad to American parents. Cruz has settled the issue with his birth certificate. President Obama said all along that he was born in the United States to an American mother and a Kenyan father. That didn’t matter to his critics, who kept insisting he was born in Africa.

Forgive my repeating myself, but if Cruz’s explanation about what the Constitution stipulates regarding presidential eligibility is good enough, why would it matter whether Barack Obama was born in Hawaii or in Kenya? He could’ve been born on Mars and would still be eligible to serve — as long as one of his parents was an American.

The president in 2012 released his own birth document that said, yep, he was born in Hawaii. That, too, settled it.

As for Cruz, thanks for coming forward. Now, let’s get on with arguing about issues … eh?

Uncategorized

Is Cruz qualified to run for POTUS?

National political media are starting to probe the issue of a possible presidential candidate’s constitutional qualifications.

The target this time is junior U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas.

http://us.cnn.com/2013/08/13/politics/natural-born-president/index.html?sr=sharebar_facebook

Let’s flash back to 2008 when another candidate came under amazing scrutiny. He was then-junior U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois. Some folks on the right said he couldn’t run for president because, they alleged, he was born in Kenya, homeland of his late father. Obama’s late mother, however, was an American citizen. Sen. Obama had said all along he was born in Hawaii, the 50th state of the U.S., in August 1961. That wasn’t good enough for the critics, who kept harping on his birth.

Eventually, Obama settled it by producing his birth certificate. He was re-elected in November 2012 and the yammering — save for a few crackpots on the far right — has stopped.

Now we have Cruz. The senator indeed was born in Canada. His father is Cuban. His mother is American. Cruz acknowledges he was born north of our border. And that has some folks questioning whether Cruz — who might run for president in 2016 — is qualified under the Constitution.

Article II stipulates that only a “natural born citizen or a “citizen of the United States … shall be eligible for the office of president.” Scholars have interpreted that to mean that Cruz could serve as president, given that his constitutional qualifications were earned at birth by virtue of his mother’s citizenship.

I tend to believe Cruz is qualified under the Constitution to serve as president, which means Obama would have been qualified to serve as well — had he been born in a foreign country, which he wasn’t.

Let’s wait to see how this Cruz story plays out. My bet, as I’ve noted already, is that the left won’t make Cruz’s birthplace nearly the issue that those on the right sought to do with Barack Obama.