The passing of proposition 8 and its ilk elsewhere has a lot of people down. A friend via her Facebook status, “thinks you shouldn’t be able to vote away civil rights.” Amen to that…got me thinking.
We have an Equal Protection Clause, but no Equal Rights Clause under the US Constitution yet. Which means that a majority vote in a state or local election can infringe upon the so-called “unalienable rights” of a minority. That isn’t democracy — that’s tyranny.
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Equal Rights Clause?
November 14, 2008The passing of proposition 8 and its ilk elsewhere has a lot of people down. A friend via her Facebook status, “thinks you shouldn’t be able to vote away civil rights.” Amen to that…got me thinking.
We have an Equal Protection Clause, but no Equal Rights Clause under the US Constitution yet. Which means that a majority vote in a state or local election can infringe upon the so-called “unalienable rights” of a minority. That isn’t democracy — that’s tyranny.
Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | Unsolicited commentary | Tagged: 2008 election, arbitrary exclusion, balance, case law, civil rights, constitutional law, constitutional rights, democracy, discrimination, elections, equal protection clause, equal rights clause, first they came..., majority, minority, popular vote, precedent, progress, proposition 8, tyranny, UDHR, UN, Universal Declaration of Human Rights | Permalink
Posted by ozob