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by ctrlalt_g
3518 days ago
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A lot has happened in the past decade, and it's not 3% driving the 97%, not that it ever was (http://www.pewforum.org/2016/05/12/changing-attitudes-on-gay...). But either way, the percentage of people who believe certain morals does not matter. No matter what our individual beliefs are, we bind ourselves to the law of the land. That's what it means to have a constitution. Even if 100% of Americans wanted to take away your freedom of speech or your freedom to bear arms, we could not do it legally. |
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In this discussion I'm not taking sides, just noting that the court needs to decide quasi-moral questions. Our interpretation of the Constitution depends on our current beliefs (and might even lead to an interpretation that the original founders would have rejected). The constitution clearly says that we have a right of free speech. However, as far as I am aware, it does not state that we have a) a right to marry, b) a right to do homosexual acts, or c) a right for homosexuals to marry. In fact, I believe B and C were illegal for large periods of time (anti-sodomy laws). I suggest that the Founders probably would not have seen homosexual marriage as a right. Due to changing morals, however, the Supreme Court now views it as a right. Were the laws constitutional before but not now? Were they always unconstitutional, but nobody challenged them? As a thought experiment, if societal morals changes to believe that homosexuality is actively harmful to society, would anti-sodomy laws be constitutional? The process of interpretation of rights necessarily involves our current beliefs.