commentaries

Re: "No one now regrets that the constitutional amendment banning slavery necessarily ended the freedom to own slaves. But it is not an argument for that amendment that it expanded freedom without contracting it. It did both." From the author's topic (the marriage amendment) and premise ("constitutions have historically expanded individual freedom, and that to contract individual freedom would be a regrettable departure from that practice"), I expected to read about amendments which had contracted individual freedom. The "Re:" statement is the first example which addressed the topic. I await Robert Delahunty's argument that banning one person's right to own another person is equivalent to a person's loss of "living in a social world in which marriage has a particular meaning and is related in specific ways to natural reproduction and family life."

Mr Delahunty says: "But proponents of the marriage amendment argue that an important freedom is being lost: that of living in a social world in which marriage has a particular meaning and is related in specific ways to natural reproduction and family life." Yes - I'd like to live in a country that doesn't sanction torture, but Mr. Delahunty made that impossible. Please spare us having to take morality lessons from someone who writes legal memos excusing state-sanctioned brutality.

From the article: "The original Constitution was perceived to be defective and in need of significant amendments." The defects in the Constitution--almost without exception--were shortcomings in guaranteeing rights. There was a robust debate about whether enumerating specific rights was necessary and whether enumerating specific rights was risky. On the former proposition, consensus had it that the Constitution would not be ratified without strong guarantees of the natural rights for which the colonists had risked their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Amendment IX addressed the latter--"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

"But proponents of the marriage amendment argue that an important freedom is being lost: that of living in a social world in which marriage has a particular meaning and is related in specific ways to natural reproduction and family life."

The "social world" that is the United States of America doesn't belong only to you. Sorry, but you never had the right to live in a GLBT-free country, so you're losing nothing. You can form a private club that prohibits gays, but you can't prevent the rest of us from polluting your "social world" beyond that.

Professor Delahunty, come back and give us the same spiel when it's your rights up for a popular vote.

From the article: "On the whole, liberals favor what is called a 'living' constitution -- meaning one that is continuously revised and adjusted to meet emerging social needs." What a matryoshka of crocks! The Framers couldn't even get all twelve of the Amendments they had proposed ratified. The notion of a "living Constitution" in no way calls for "continuous" revision to meet "emerging social needs." Rather a "living Constitution" is a pragmatic notion based on the broad terms used by the Framers and ratified by the first citizens of the United States of America, enlightened and rational human beings who had seen great changes in their world and knew that the world would continue to change. Enlightened and rational humanists who believed in the potential value of human beings and sought solely rational ways of solving human problems--in this case, the problem of establishing a government and guaranteeing that that government could not deny or abridge natural rights.

Apparently becoming a professor of Constitutional law doesn't require one to have learned, let alone mastered, basic logic. The idea that ending slavery advanced freedom for some people but constricted it for others is such blatant nonsense I don't even know what to say. It twists the very meaning of words into sheer uselessness to advance the idea that losing the legal support for exploiting one's fellow humans as possessions rather than free persons is itself a loss of "freedom"... Sorry, Professor, just like you conservatives now want to pretend to be able to define "marriage", you don't get to define "freedom" differently to support your argument. Allowing gays to marry takes no freedom away from anyone. It's not a zero sum game.

'"But proponents of the marriage amendment argue that an important freedom is being lost: that of living in a social world in which marriage has a particular meaning and is related in specific ways to natural reproduction and family life."' Yes, Pumice. Sorta like my right to take my 12 year old to the grocery store without being barraged by Cosmo, Maxim, etc.: '24 Ways to Lose Weight and Give Him Better Orgasms.' Oh wait, I forgot. We parents have no right to raise our children in a healthy moral ecology. The TV, music, and entertainment industry have a 'right' to market to 'youthful' consumers.

And when laws against interracial marriage were declared unconstitutional, this writer lost the "freedom" to live in a world where only people of the same race could marry. The problem is that in this country, you do not have the "freedom" to treat others as second class citizens no matter how much you would like to.

I suppose that I have bias here since I think: "marraige is a sacrament!" Thus, I can't see why the pope, and others who support his politiical opinion, try to say that marraige is something else. To me, if this thing passes, it's like the 3/5 laws that gave black votes less value or laws that only counted votes cast by men. That's why I think the state constitution shouldn't get updated: "why should it pander to the sexual preferences of the majority?" That seems almost like racism to me. Moreover, your argument that "laws take away rights from one group and gives them to another" doesn't make sense! Don't politicians slander one another? so the law seems to protect politicians too? to the point where voters have come to loathe the mud slinging and half truths?

Typical rightwing crap from a supporter of "legalized" torture, as witnessed by the garbage he wrote for the previous Republican administration. Like all rightwingers, he chooses to pretend that the Bill of Rights was an afterthought, when in fact it was repeatedly and heatedly discussed during the period of adoption of the Constitution, with adoptioin in a number of states predicated on the adoption of the Bill of Rights as the quid pro quo for supporting adoption of the Constitution shows a lack of intellectual honesty that is breath taking in the extreme. And to have this same "gentleman" compare the lost rights of slaver holders to the release from bondage of over four milliion people is beyond repugnant and requires the University of St Thomas to offer a public explanation of how someone holding such vile and repulsive ideas can have a seat in its law school. And, of course, like all reactionaries who cherry pick their way through both the Constitution, as well as the Bill of Rights, I would like his take on the 9th Amendment to the constitution, which reads "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." It seems to me the language here is clear, the people have rights that can be infered from other sources and that these are not limited by the specific listing of a set of rights in the Constitution.