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Back to Quack Off
Quack Off
by
Free
Market Duck
Idaho anti-gay marriage amendment
unconstitutional
(Sep 27, 2006)
Boise, ID –
The anti-gay marriage
amendment, HJR2, on the ballot for this November is as unconstitutional as
an amendment to, say, shoot all the Chinese or Jews in Idaho.
Constitutional amendments cannot legally override the
basis
for existing amendments, such as freedom of speech or freedom of
association, since these freedoms are obtained not from the Idaho or U.S.
Constitutions but rather
a priori
(beforehand) to the existence of both constitutions. These inalienable
rights from either "God" or from the fact of the individual's existence are
part of "Natural Rights" philosophy. In fact, Natural Rights philosophy is
what allows free people to then create a constitution to protect their
innate rights.
In other words,
constitutional amendments do not grant
rights; constitutional amendments prohibit
infringements upon already existing (at birth) individual
rights. All marriage rights (gay and otherwise) are derived from civil
union rights, which in turn are derived from freedom of association rights,
which are derived from basic Natural Rights and not from the government. By
definition, Natural Rights are inherent rights.
Anti-gay marriage
activists erroneously argue their case on the
content of the freedom rather than on the freedom itself. In
freedom of speech, this would be the equivalent of arguing for or against
the content of other people’s speeches rather than on the freedom (of
speech) itself. In freedom of religion, it would be equivalent to arguing
for or against a specific religion or religious sect such as Baptist or
Catholicism rather than on the freedom (of religion) itself. Thus, the
anti-gay marriage activists argue for their restricted content of marriage,
one-man one-woman, as the ONLY allowable choice within freedom of
association and civil unions. If the anti-gay marriage activists are
consistent, they would argue for one type of speech in freedom of speech,
one sect of religion for freedom of religion, and their favorite commodities
for freedom of trade. (Notice that this is exactly what the current
faith-based GOP administration has been doing with all of our freedoms
lately.)
But, as this
reductio ad absurdum makes perfectly clear, embedding one’s specific content
as the only legal choice in any freedom whether it’s freedom of association,
freedom of speech, freedom of religion, or freedom of trade, is not freedom
at all. Freedom means the right to choose your own content within the
framework of choice, not somebody else’s choice rammed down your throat by
the government. Freedoms require a framework of choice, not restricted
contents. You may not agree with somebody’s choice of sexual partners, or
their Nazi speech, or their worship of hippopotamuses at midnight, or their
trading of gold for hula-hoops across the Atlantic, but that’s what freedom
is all about: choice and therefore tolerance of others’ non-infringing
choices.
Therefore,
amendments that infringe upon basic individual rights -- such as the current
anti-gay marriage amendment which also bans civil unions in Idaho -- cannot
legally be voted-in by a democratic majority rule. Both the Idaho and U.S.
Constitutions are not "granting"
documents; they are "prohibiting"
documents. And they prohibit infringements
upon the a priori rights
of the smallest minority possible: the individual.
When you go to the
polls on November 7 in Idaho, you should vote NO on the anti-gay marriage
amendment because it is an assault on the concept of your pre-constitutional
right to choose your content within the framework of all of our Natural
Rights freedoms: freedom of association which includes marriage and civil
unions, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of trade, and all
the other freedoms that we obtain at birth, regardless of political
geography, ethnicity or gender. -- FM Duck
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