Burton Speaks

I'm going to start my little post here by acknowledging that I am not (nor have I ever been) and Constitutional lawyer. My knowledge of this fine document comes mostly from high school classes and what's actually printed there; I don't know many (if any) of the Supreme Court decisions that have defined the scope of it. That said, let me continue.

So President Popular is on the road again with his constitutional amendment that would "protect marriage" by defining it as being between a man and a woman. This, of course means that homosexual couples, polygamists, and those who would marry their pet are SOL. Many believe that he's doing this to shore up the support of his "evangelical base", whose support of him may have been slipping as of late.

Let me explain why this is dumb.

I am firmly of the opinion that the Constitution serves two purposes. The first is that it defines the mechanics of our government. But the second purpose is of importance to every American every day of their life. The Constitutional amendments provide for and ensure freedom and liberty. Hence, of course, the Bill of Rights. To this day only one amendment has truly abridged the rights of the people; that was the 18th amendment (prohibition). It was later repealed, of course, with another constitutional amendmend (the 21st).

Any law like this one that gets passed is only going to get unpassed when the political winds shift again. Any law we pass that denies minority groups basic rights is not only immoral, but will cause a lot of trouble for us later. The fact that El Presidente is continuing to make noise about this proposal of his I find reek offensively of incompetence and stupidity. I hope that - should this idiotic idea get past congress - our states would wisely refuse to ratify it.