Wasting Time on Gay Marriage
June 5, 2006 – 9:32 amIt’s good to know that things are going so well in this country that the Senate can take the time to debate whether we should propose a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in this country. The war in Iraq? Going swimmingly. The economy? Deficit-free. Health care? Everyone’s got it. Gas prices? Never been lower.
Well, now that these lesser problems are out of the way, let’s get to the important stuff. Let’s make sure homosexuals can’t get married. You know, I hear people say, “America is the greatest country on Earth.” And I’m like, “Yeah, sort of…but we still give way too many freedoms to the gays.” People, it’s about damn time we write some bigotry into this here Constitution!
Okay, sarcasm aside, let’s review the current twenty seven amendments to the United States Constitution. And then we’ll see where banning gay marriage falls into the mix.
- Freedom of religion; freedom of speech.
- Freedom of the people to bear arms.
- Freedom from the government forcibly housing soldiers in the homes of its citizens during peacetime.
- Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.
- Freedom from double jeopardy (i.e. freedom from being prosecuted twice for the same crime); rights of due process.
- Right to a speedy and public trial.
- Right to a trial by jury.
- Freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.
- Freedoms enumerated in the Constitution do not imply the limiting of other unstated freedoms.
- The powers unstated in the constitution are left to the states.
- Limits the federal judiciary from involvement in suits filed by citizens (of this country or others) against states.
- Creation of the electoral college for purposes of electing the President of the United States.
- Freedom from slavery.
- Defined United States citizenship; established equal protection under the law for all United States citizens; repealed the three-fifths compromise (i.e. every citizen counted equally in terms of apportioning representation in the House of Representatives).
- Freedom from having voting rights denied “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude”.
- The federal government can tax the income of its citizens without apportioning these funds to the states.
- Each state is granted two Senators who are to be elected by the people of that state.
- Made “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” illegal.
- Freedom from having voting rights denied “on account of sex”.
- Specification of end-of-term dates and details of presidential succession.
- Repeal of the eighteenth amendment.
- Established a two term limit for the President of the United States.
- Established the District of Columbia’s participation in the electoral college.
- Freedom from having voting rights denied “by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax”.
- Further specification of details of presidential succession.
- Freedom to vote for all citizens aged eighteen years or greater.
- Limits the ability of members of Congress to adjust their own compensation.
And there we have it. All twenty seven amendments. Let’s go through and pick out those amendments that limit the freedoms of citizens of this country. Hmm…well, none of the first ten do. Those are the Bill of Rights, named as such for good reason. Let’s keep looking. The eighteenth amendment definitely limits the freedoms of citizens. And it looks like that’s about it. And what happened to the one amendment to our Constitution that limited the freedoms of United States citizens? It got repealed.
Wow, imagine that. The one time we amended the United States Constitution, a document designed to protect the freedoms of this country’s citizens, to further limit the freedoms of said citizens, we said, “Whoops!” and erased our mistake. And now what does President Bush and the Republican Congress want to do? Enact a Constitutional amendment that limits the freedoms of United States citizens.
I just wrote the other day about how Bill O’Reilly hates our troops, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that President Bush hates our freedoms. It all kind of makes sense now that I think about it.
A mother’s freedom to choose what’s best for her and her children? Hates it. A homosexual couple’s freedom to marry? Hates it. The freedom of citizens in this country to communicate with others (and with each other) privately? Hates it.
It’s about damn time we have a President that not only doesn’t hate the freedoms of his or her country’s citizens, but in fact loves these freedoms. How refreshing would that be?
4 Responses to “Wasting Time on Gay Marriage”
But read those again, and think about how many of them were added to deal with racism.
13. Black people are not slaves.
14. Black people are people too. Not just non-slaves.
15. Oh, I guess we can let black people vote if they want.
24. You know, when we said black people can vote we meant you also can’t charge them obscene amounts of money in order to prevent them from actually voting.
A white person couldn’t marry a black person until 1958. That’s almost a century after the 14th amendment was passed. Prejudice and discrimination are nasty, difficult things to extract from a population. It’s possible, but it takes a long time. I’m certain that gays will eventually enjoy the same rights as straight people, but first we have to have enough people who don’t get the wiggins at the idea and then the nation has to finish this swing to the right and start moving back towards the center.
And anyway, Bush doesn’t hate the freedoms of all Americans. He hates the freedoms of minorities and women (unless those minorities are foreigners who want to come and work for less than the already criminally low minimum wage). And other people’s privacy.
By Dixie on Jun 6, 2006 at 10:06 am
Good point. There are certainly some freedoms President Bush will do a great deal to protect. For example, President Bush will do everything in his power to protect the freedom of America’s wealthiest citizens to keep as large a portion of their hard earned income as possible. How will he do this? By pushing this tax burden on America’s poorest citizens.
As long as you’re rich, white, straight, and Christian, President Bush is going to protect your freedoms (most of the time). The rest of us? Tough luck.
By jjk on Jun 7, 2006 at 4:57 pm