The Equal Rights Amendment would have been nice. A Supreme Court member did say that without it, the Constitution does not prohibit discrimination based on sex.
There are certain rights that are broadly popular, such as the right to birth control and the right to be gay, which are currently only protected by Supreme Court judgment. A member of that court explicitly called for reconsidering them. They are so broadly accepted that nobody even does polling for them, but there is so little chance of passing an amendment to protect them that nobody is even trying.
You don't need a constitutional amendment -- just pass a law. If they're so broadly accepted, it shouldn't be difficult.
> the right to birth control
You mean the right to contraceptives paid for by the public, covered by insurance, or administered by people who may have sincerely-held religious beliefs against contraception? No state, Supreme Court judgments aside, forbids an adult from paying for birth control pills on their own prescribed by a doctor who sees it fit.
> the right to be gay
What? Obergefell requires states to grant and recognize marriages between two people of the same sex. That seems like a pretty narrow part of "being gay".
You're right -- I was thinking of more recent cases that expanded upon Griswold. Thank you for reminding me.
As I understand it, Justice Thomas's mentioning of Lawrence v. Texas and other laws "to be revisited", so to speak, were limited to the application of substantive due process in arriving at those judgments, and not necessarily to reverse the outcome of those judgments.
That's right. He just wants to take those old cases out for a spin, give 'em a tune up, kick the tires a bit. No chance he'd take away some rights that George Washington didn't put explicitly in the Constitution.
inalienable rights shouldn't be subject to the whims of what most people want. sure that kicks the fan down the road by having to define what is an "inalienable right", but "mob rulel, "tyranny of the majority" whatever you like to call it shouldn't be a basis to deprive certain peoples of basic rights
I agree, inalienable rights shouldn't depend on what other people think or want. That's why basic rights should only be negative rights; in the classical formulation, your rights to be free from the government depriving you of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".
Increasingly, "basic rights" are being morphed into positive rights that require other people supporting (whether in though, speech, or action) said right. Right to birth control? Someone needs to make and administer those pills. Right to housing? Someone needs to build and maintain the houses. I'm afraid that such rights will always depend on the whims of those around you, and hence cannot be truly basic.
This equal rights principle is implied by "all men are created equal" and both parties would support the explicit amendment, maybe for different reasons. The red camp wants to end "affirmative" action, while the blue camp wants to affirm rights of minorities. I guess the wording of the amendement is what would cause a fight.
Scalia disagreed. He says only purpose of the 14th amendment was to make sure slaves were on equal footing. If women had rights they wouldn't have needed an amendment to vote.
He's dead but at least five people almost certainly agree with him.
There are certain rights that are broadly popular, such as the right to birth control and the right to be gay, which are currently only protected by Supreme Court judgment. A member of that court explicitly called for reconsidering them. They are so broadly accepted that nobody even does polling for them, but there is so little chance of passing an amendment to protect them that nobody is even trying.