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Can’t have it both ways on Constitution

For all their talk about obeying the Constitution, some people don’t seem to like the U.S. Constitution very much. They appear to want to nullify key constitutional provisions that lie at the heart of our freedoms and greatness. 

In the case of the mosque planned (by the most reconciliation-oriented of the many branches of Islam) for a site near ground zero, many are ready to abrogate the freedom of religion clause of the First Amendment, arguing that strong feelings about this “sacred soil” should trump constitutional guarantees.

In the case of California’s repeal of the same-sex marriage law passed by the Legislature, there have been cries of protest against Judge Vaughn Walker’s finding that the ban violates the 14th Amendment clause requiring equal protection of the laws. Evidently, some folks feel that only certain classes of people with certain religious beliefs are entitled to this protection.

Some Republican senators want to eliminate that part of the 14th Amendment that guarantees citizenship to all people who are born in the United States. Rather than pass sensible pathways to citizenship for illegal immigrants, they want to stifle this route, which has been a mainstay in naturalization policy since Abraham Lincoln’s presidency.

The Arizona anti-illegal immigrant law is clearly intended to stop what some Arizonans see as an “invasion” by undocumented Latinos.  In her ruling, Judge Susan R. Bolton, reasoning on the basis of the Supremacy Clause in Article I, Section 8, found that parts of the law that subvert federal naturalization laws were unconstitutional.

You can’t have it both ways, on one hand demanding adherence to the Constitution, and on the other, trying to tear it down.

The Constitution provides for its own changing. Let us not change it to enshrine hatred or to diminish equality and opportunity.



Charles W. Acker

Whitefield

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