In your recent OUTSFL you ran two pieces on the U.S. Supreme Court decision addressing the First Amendment. What has not been discussed is how far off the court and nation have been in how we determine what is and what is not Constitutional.
Often decisions are determined by reviewing the laws or rules under consideration, not the intentions of the Constitution. There is no referencing the meat of the Constitution. There is no attention paid to the Founders' intentions and the underpinnings of what the document was drafted to achieve as an integral part of the great experiment of self-government.
The U.S. Constitution begins with the lines, "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, Establish Justice, ensure Domestic Tranquility, provide for the Common Defence, promote the General Welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do Ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
This is what the document is about, the rest is how we get there. For far too long, we have paid more attention to symptoms than causes and have put the above lines into the dustbin of history.
When a court, any court, adjudicates the law it should always be benchmarked against that opening paragraph. Everything done by the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government should be focused on arriving at the goals set for us by the Founders. In that, we have failed miserably.
When the recent Court decisions have been handed down, few if any meet that standard. Few if any bring us closer to meeting the needs of the PEOPLE, or move us closer to a more perfect union, justice, or any other intention of the signers of the Constitution.
We the people have not held ourselves, or our elected and appointed officials accountable and in a government of the people, for the people, and by the people that is a tragedy. The documents, the supporting materials, letters, fragments of conversations from everyone involved, from George Washington, who served as president of the Constitutional Convention to the Congress that approved the document to the states that ratified it, there is ample proof that in the centuries since then we have moved far afield from its purpose.
The public should be outraged, if not by the decisions themselves, then by the reasoning that got us here. Every decision of the Court should lead us towards a more perfect union, one that brings justice to all and secures the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. In this, the court, the legislature, the executive, and most importantly the people have failed.
We, the LGBTQ+ community, owe it to ourselves to do more, engage others, and have this debate. Our future is on the line, and in this debate, we remain on the right side of history. Now let us make our judicial system work as it was intended and build a nation where all are free and equal.
