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Mon. Feb 02, 2004

More Constitutional Obscenity

More Constitutional Obscenity – A Constitution is a powerful and wonderful document. In America, their purpose is to [1] guarantee the rights of individual citizens (e.g., the first group of Constitutional Amendments is also called ”The Bill of Rights”), and [2], to restrict the powers of governments over those individuals (right to bear arms, freedom of speech, religion, etc.). For hundreds of years, it has served well to restrict government power, and preserve individual rights.

To use a Constitutional Amendment in an attempt to restrict the rights of individuals is a blasphemy against American Democracy. It was true when I wrote it about the Federal Marriage Amendment, and it’s true at the state level as well.

So who doesn’t get that basic governmental concept? Politicians, the people running the government. At least that seems to be the case in Georgia: ”Today, State Senate Majority Leader Bill Stephens (R-Canton), Sen. Don Cheeks (R-Augusta) and Sen. John Bulloch (R-Ochlocknee) proposed an amendment to the Georgia Constitution to define ’marriage’ as the union of only a man and woman.”

”If it passes both Houses of the Georgia General Assembly, and is signed by Governor Perdue, the proposed amendment will ask voters to amend the Constitution so that Georgia will recognize ’marriage only the union of a man and woman.’”

That’s a lot of ”if’s,” as is always the case with a Constitutional Amendment. It always seems to happen during an election year, and there’s always a good deal of grandstanding. The fact there’s already relevant law on the books doesn’t matter: ”A Georgia law, passed in 1996, already defines marriage as between a man and a woman. In addition, state law prohibits the recognition of same-sex marriages from a different state.”

To Senator Stephens, that’s not enough. Some judge could ... potentially ... someday turn their law upside down, and after eight years on the books, right now, with elections coming up, is the critical time to add this tumor to our Constitution.

You could make that argument about every law on the books, but that’s no reason to arc weld them all onto the Constitution.

Still, this could come to a vote in the Senate very soon. Oh, it would still have to pass the House, be signed by the Governor, and voted on by the people. But bad ideas should be squashed right out of the gate.

If you live in Georgia, here’s some good advice: ”Please click on the link, look up your Senator and tell him or her not to support this horrible Constitutional Amendment. Tell them Georgia is better than that.”

Today.