Wednesday, November 04, 2009

The Right Way to Amend the Constitution, part 17


This is part seventeen of an ongoing series of articles containing my proposals for amendments to the Constitution. For someone who claims so fervently to be a “Constitutionalist”, how is it that I can be so eager to change the Constitution? Well, there are several reasons. For one thing, I believe that after the Bill of Rights, much damage was done by some of the amendments that were added and the legitimacy of some of their ratifications are questionable. Secondly, the Constitution has been violated so much that the necessity of further amendments is needed to resolve the resulting problems. But this should be done extremely cautiously. My amendments are extremely unlikely to ever be introduced, much less ratified, but hey, I can dream, can’t I?

Here is my seventeenth proposed amendment (subject to revision):

Section 1: Neither the United States nor any State shall bestow privileges, immunities, or protections of law contingent upon the sexual orientation, sexual behavior, or beliefs concerning sexuality of any Person.

Section 2: No funds shall be set aside by the United States or any State for the particular purpose of providing protection of law for persons contingent upon the sexual orientation, sexual behavior, or beliefs concerning sexuality of those persons.

Section 3: No law of the United States or of any State shall increase the penalty of a crime committed if such an increase is contingent upon the motives of the perpetrator in regards to sexual orientation, sexual behavior, or beliefs concerning sexuality.

Section 4: This article shall not be construed as affecting the rights and responsibilities that parents have over their children.

Section 5: This article shall not be construed as prohibiting laws against certain sexual behaviors.

Section 6: All laws of the United States and of the several States which violate the terms of this article are hereby null and void.

Commentary on this proposed amendment:

The Federal Marriage Amendment does not put an end to sexual orientation based hate crimes legislation, anti-discrimination laws, civil unions, legally recognized domestic partnerships, etc., but only legally recognized gay “marriage”. It defines marriage and there are dangers in this. Most people who support a Federal Marriage Amendment do so, not because they want homosexuals to be punished or to take away their rights as citizens, but because they don’t want the government to give them (or any other group of people) any special rights or special protections under the law. Why not just say this, then? A form of this could be passed as law into the U.S. Code, but then it wouldn’t apply to the States. A constitutional amendment would also be more permanent.

This amendment would also forbid governments from giving people incentives to marry (which causes more divorces) and would prevent those who chose neither to marry nor to engage in illicit sexual behavior from becoming second class citizens.

Click here to read the next article in this series.

1 comment:

  1. The Federal Marriage Amendment reads:

    Marriage in the United States shall consist solely of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.

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