A friend sent me the following link: Scalia: Women Don’t Have Constitutional Protection Against Discrimination
The gist of the article is this. The 14th Amendment, specifically the Equal Protection clause, requires the states to provide equal protection to all people within its jurisdiction. Scalia is arguing that the Constitution and this amendment does not prohibit the passage of laws discriminating based on gender or sexual orientation. He might be arguing some legal nicety that due to my lack of a law degree, is unknown to me. Either way it is scary stuff. It strikes me as one of highest placed judges stating that discrimination was legally okay?!?!
A few days after I read the link, I was scanning through the radio dial. The phrase 14th Amendment caused me to pause my scanning. I never did catch who the person talking was or what his profession or authority was. I am paraphrasing here as I do not remember his comments verbatim. He was relating how the 14th amendment (passed during the Reformation Period after the Civil War) applied only to former slaves, Indians (Native Americans), and immigrant men. He said it did not apply to women or other groups. He went to say that he interpreted the Constitution strictly. He did so because the Constitution is a cherished document that ultimately came from God.
Inside my pick-em-up truck I am screaming, “What?” It is bad enough that a large segment of our population believe the Bible is the given words of God to be taken literally, but now the Constitution? Then I got to thinking, there are 27 amendments to the US Constitution. I, for one, would think that if this is a God given instrument, how come God did not get it perfect the first time. Why did God have to go back 27 times to modify what was originally given to us. I will not even get into what the fact that slavery was codified in the document as original written implies. Taken to the logic extreme this seems to imply that Americans are God’s new chosen people, not the Jews as stated in that other God given book, the Bible.
