The equal protection clause states: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; 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.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has put forth an opinion that this does not offer protection to women, or respect to sexual orientation, in direct conflict with a 1971 unanimous ruling that said this protected women from discrimination. The clause has also been a major basis for arguments for LGBT protection.
Marcia Greenberger, founder and co-president of the National Women's Law Center, fired back a brilliant response. "In these comments, Justice Scalia says if Congress wants to protect laws that prohibit sex discrimination, that's up to them. But what if they want to pass laws that discriminate? Then he says that there's nothing the court will do to protect women from government-sanctioned discrimination against them."
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Bon quotes clause 1 of the 14th Amendment. Clause 2 [emphasis mine]:
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
If the 14th Amendment was written to keep out discrimination against women, why does the 14th Amendment contain supposed discrimination against women? Perhaps the Justices who ruled in Reed v. Reed (the 1971 case) believed the second clause of the 14th Amendment didn't exist, even though it's right there in its supposedly discriminatory glory.
Some nitwit professor (he's got to be a liberal slug) wants to do a politically correct rewrite of Twain's Huck Finn, removing "questionable" words that are in the novel, even though the words in question provide a huge amount of context to the novel. So it's quite apparent that liberals in academia and the Supreme Court (even though some members of the Warren Court were appointed by Republicans, they are recognized as liberals) want to rewrite documents to make them feeeel better. This includes Justices rewriting the Constitution in a typically unconstitutional matter.
Scalia is correct.
Sorry Steve, not biting. You're full of crap, and your maybes and going right for the schoolyard insults shows that even you know it.
But thanks, sweetie. Don't stop trying, okay?
So then you think the words in the Constitution don't matter, is that correct?
Which is why the Constitution was amended with the 19th Amendment.
There's no reference to the 14th Amendment in the 19th Amendment. That's because clause 2 of the 14th Amendment didn't keep women from voting (legislation did). The 19th Amendment enabled full suffrage, but it didn't overturn any part of the 14th Amendment. Therefore it is still in effect as written.
Besides, this has nothing to do with what Scalia correctly said.
Again, in order to justify Reed v. Reed, clause 2 of the 14th Amendment has to be completely ignored.
Scalia is only correct if you believe in a strict originalist view of the Constitution.
You'd better hope he's wrong. Because if he is correct, then the federal government can freely codify mass discrimination against women into law against some 150 million plus Americans.
The Constitution does not exist in a temporal vacuum.
Scalia is only correct if you believe in a strict originalist view of the Constitution.
You'd better hope he's wrong.
No, I believe he's right.
Because if he is correct, then the federal government can freely codify mass discrimination against women into law against some 150 million plus Americans.
Are you kidding? Thanks to the liberal reading of the 14th Amendment and the liberals' concept of equal protection in Roe v. Wade and Casey, 150 million potential American fathers already face discrimination since a wife has a right to not notify her husband about an abortion the wife wants to get (the law in question didn't require a husband's approval, just that he be notified). So don't tell me about gender discrimination since five liberal Justices codified it into law.
The Constitution does not exist in a temporal vacuum.
It does to liberals when they want it to; e.g., the aforementioned Roe v. Wade, and previously, Plessy v. Ferguson. That's because liberals don't believe in the Constitution to begin with, so for them it can mean anything they want it to mean at any particular point in time.
No, that's called projection, Steve. We've talked about this, where you assign your own foibles to "liberals" and blame them for everything?
Under your silly logic the 14th Amendment is racist because it granted rights to African-Americans.
Are we now also ignoring how nearly every state has made abortions more difficult since Roe through a variety of hoops the woman has to jump through in order to make the decision about her own body?
You have no problem with that level of government intervention, or with Arizona's immigration law, or with TSA searches at airports, but we expand health insurance coverage to people then it's an unprecedented power grab and you wave your little Gadsden flag and call for insurrection.
It's getting tired, man.
I'm not projecting at all. Liberals say they believe in a "living Constitution", meaning its flexible to whatever they want it to mean at any given time. Tell me that's not true. Or are you now an originalist, as Scalia is? Or is it that you redefine the word "original" to mean something other than what it really means?
Under your silly logic the 14th Amendment is racist because it granted rights to African-Americans.
I don't think so. Only someone who intentionally ignores the original intent of the 14th Amendment would say something so repugnant.
Are we now also ignoring how nearly every state has made abortions more difficult since Roe through a variety of hoops the woman has to jump through in order to make the decision about her own body?
Good. Perhaps it's because there is a life inside of a woman that she and her male sexual partner are responsible for. I realize you believe this is just silly and antiquated (I read your post on Goldberg), but that life inside the woman won't be anything but another human being.
You have no problem with that level of government intervention,...
That's right. Because we're talking about a future American life, someone with guaranteed rights.
...or with Arizona's immigration law,...
Because there are borders to the U.S. It's a fact.
...or with TSA searches at airports,...
No, I'm not for those. Now you're projecting.
...but we expand health insurance coverage to people then it's an unprecedented power grab and you wave your little Gadsden flag and call for insurrection.
I don't think so. I want it overturned and/or repealed outright, just like you want with Prop. 8. The only difference between what I want and what you want is that my support for things is based on the Constitution while your support for things you agree with isn't.
Last time I checked, you're not the final arbiter of what is Constitutional. That's your opinion, not fact. You seems to be incapable of knowing the difference.
Just like you're not the final arbiter of this blog.
Thread over.
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