{"id":620,"date":"2004-02-19T07:53:10","date_gmt":"2004-02-19T15:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/02\/19\/decide-which-you-favor-the-constitution-or-tyranny-of-the-majority\/"},"modified":"2004-02-19T07:53:10","modified_gmt":"2004-02-19T15:53:10","slug":"decide-which-you-favor-the-constitution-or-tyranny-of-the-majority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=620","title":{"rendered":"Decide which you favor: The Constitution, or tyranny of the majority."},"content":{"rendered":"

David Benkof<\/a> writes:<\/p>\n

The problem is, the current political situation gives segregation proponents no choice other than what our president calls “the Constitutional process.” Believe me, right-of-center politicians (and especially the White House) haven’t been eager to deal with segregation at all. But blacks sued in court, won in Massachusetts, and now the only way those of us who want to preserve racial segregation can do anything politically is to amend a constitution – the Massachusetts one or the federal one.<\/div>\n

Actually, that’s not what David Benkof wrote – he was writing about gay marriage, not segregation. But I thought switching the words would add a bit of perspective. He’s saying that if courts find that lesbians and gays are entitled to equal protection of the law, it is reasonable to respond by changing the constitution.<\/p>\n

It comes down to whether you think constitutional rights are important in all circumstances, or only important in those circumstances in which you approve of the outcome. If you believe in the 14th amendment, providing equal protection of the law to all citizens, then you must believe that the 14th amendment is still valid even when it leads to an outcome you disagree with, or that the majority of voters disagree with.<\/i><\/p>\n

David’s position is that the 14th Amendment (and the Massachusetts equivalent) is invalid if it leads to a court decision that he doesn’t like, or that the majority wouldn’t vote for. That’s no different from saying that there shouldn’t be a 14th Amendment at all..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Benkof writes: The problem is, the current political situation gives segregation proponents no choice other than what our president calls “the Constitutional process.” Believe me, right-of-center politicians (and especially the White House) haven’t been eager to deal with segregation … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}