From: dpage@ra.csc.ti.com (Doug Page)
Subject: Re: What is the 14th Amendment?
Organization: Texas Instruments
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 19:02:39 GMT

In article <93006.28932.J056600@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM>, J056600@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM writes:
|> 
|>    I've seen too many people here who claim to understand the Constitution
|> also state that Colorado's Amendment 2 violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S.
|> Constitution.  Well, it doesn't.
|>    Back in the Civil War era (Civil War?  There's an oxymoron), rights were
|> being systematically denied to blacks by state and local governments.  The
|> Bill of Rights guaranteed that the *federal* government (Congress, actually)
|> could not deny the protections of the Bill of Rights to anyone.  That still
|> left that ability to the state and local governments.  The 14th Amendment was
|> created primarily to keep the Bill of Rights binding at state and local levels
|> of government.  It did not--and still does not--apply to private entities. The
|> 14th Amendment is *only* binding on state and local governments.  Read the text
|> of it again.  It does NOT address private discrimination at all.
|>    That doesn't mean that private discrimination is a good thing.  In fact, the
|> Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1991 would be a redundant waste of time if the
|> 14th Amendment covered private discrimination.  But in no way can it be said
|> that the Constitution provides protection against discrimination by non-
|> governmental entities.
|>    You can say that CO 2 violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (though I don't
|> think that sexual orientation is covered by it), but certainly not the 14th
|> Amendment.  If you re-read the Bill of Rights and the other amendments, you
|> will see that the Constitution was written to limit the powers of the *federal
|> government* only--with later amendments (such as the 14th) which also force
|> state and local *governments* into compliance.  There is nothing--repeat,
|> NOTHING--in the Bill of Rights or subsequent amendments about limiting the
|> powers of *private* businesses or *private* citizens.
|>    Perhaps allowing discrimination against gays is wrong, but it isn't a
|> Constitutional question.  It will take either a Constitutional amendment or a
|> law passed by Congress which is found to be constitutional to legally prevent
|> it.  Sorry, folks.  That's just the way it is.  Try to change it if you don't
|> like it.
|> 
|> 
|> Tim Irvin

Tim,
you are incorrectly assuming that the facts have something to do with what is
"Constitutional".  The Supreme Court (S.C.) has come to a totally different
conclusion.  For example, in its decision in Walz v. Tax Commission, 1970, the
Court admitted that by using the 14th Amendment as it had since Everson v.
Board of Education, 1947, that the S.C. had created an American revolution. 
The S.C. stated that this revolution:

	Involved the imposition of new and far-reaching constitutional
	restraints on the States.  Nationalization of many civil liberties has
	been the consequence of the Fourteenth Amendment, reversing the
	historic position that the foundations of those liberties rested
	largely in state law. The process of the "selective incorporation" of
	various provisions of the Bill of Rights into the Fourteenth
	Amendment . . . has been a steady one . . .  The Establishment Clause
	was not incorporated in the Fourteenth Amendment until Everson v.
	Board of Education . . . was decided in 1947. . . .  And so the
	revolution occasioned by the Fourteenth Amendment has progressed as
	Article after Article of the Bill of Rights has been incorporated in
	it and made applicable to the States.

		(Walz v. Tax Commission; 397 U.S. 664, 701, 702, 703 (1970))

(BTW, if you want to look up the decision by the Supreme Court that FDR
 appointed that would ignored the Constitution and stop its predecessor's
 practice of finding his New Deal programs unconstitutional it is Everson v.
 Board of Education; 330 U.S. 1 (1947).)

Whether it is in the Constitution or not, the Supreme Court has used the
application of the 14th Amendment on issues ranging from prayer in schools to
abortion rights.  They have done so (since 1947) irrespective of what the
Constitution and past precedent(s) of the Supreme Court itself.  Roe v. Wade
ignores the fact that the US Constitution is actually silent about the matter
of abortion and , thus, it should be in the hands of the states; but the Court
was more interested in legislating an ideal than in executing it
Constitutionally granted powers (which it could just as easily redefine as
well).

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