Thursday, July 18, 2013

Our Marriages (as LGBTQI People) and states rights and civil rights.

Fox News Bill O'Reilly was on CBS and other channels on mainstream tv waters (don't know why as there was no new book out that I could tell).  Towleroad.com caught the CBS broadcast, in which O'Reilly is upset with the Supreme Court re: overturning Prop 8, which was decided by the people.  He thinks it was a matter of states rights: the state had the right to make this decision. Period.  Supreme Court could not overrule it. The problem is: CA was given the right to amend the constitution (CA state one) AFTER marriages of LGBTQI and straight people was allowed via a court ruling.

Teaching Ethics this semester, and remembering we are a Republic and not a democracy, in which the rights of the minority are protected and we are given "equal treatment" because we are all created with certain unalienable rights, e.g., life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, don't we as LGBTQI people have the right to marry as a civil right, protected by the Constitution? The idea of putting civil rights "up" for a vote by the populace (democracy) is not helpful but leads to anarchy.  For example, in 1967, Loving v. VA, in which interracial marriage was the law of the land, around 27% of the US approved.  But as a civil right, polls don't matter.

Marriage equality: a civil right.

Here's O'Reilly: http://www.towleroad.com/2013/07/oreillymarriage.html

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