Equal Protections Clause

[Cecilie1200]

Looking around .......

Seems like Ihopehefails is the only one supporting his interpretation

Actually, I agreed with him initially, until he followed someone's misinterpretation of what he said to a totally stupid place. That was when I jumped out of the vehicle before it plunged off the side of the cliff.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Looking around .......

Seems like Ihopehefails is the only one supporting his interpretation

Well, he didn't take long comparing law-abiding, tax-paying gay citizens with child molesters, did he?

No, not at all.

The idea of gay sex sends tremors through the likes of ihopehefails. He will read any interpretation into trying to get the Constitution to support his anti-gay views

Unless you're his spouse, his priest, or Miss Cleo, I don't believe your personal opinion of what he does or does not think or feel is of any interest or relevance.

On the other hand, I don't usually find your opinion of what YOU think or feel to be interesting or relevant, either.

 

[ihopehefails]

All laws benefit or punish certain groups, ie. people who fall under the description contained in the law. To use the OP's example, laws against theft punish ONLY those people who fall in the certain group described as "those who commit the crime of theft". They do not punish people who do not fall in that category, ie. people who do not commit the crime of theft. This is not legally considered to be discrimination, because in this context, discrimination would be defined as "punishing people for committing the crime of theft ONLY if they fall into some other category not described in the law"; for example, punishing only black people who commit the crime of theft but not white people who commit the crime of theft. So long as the law punishing the crime of theft is applied the same way to everyone who commits the crime of theft, regardless of other factors, the law is considered to be equal protection.

What happens when you build the discrimination into the law like only punishing people who are black?

It is my understanding that laws which target a group based on race or ethnicity are invalid. This is why homosexual activists keep lobbying to have "sexual orientation" included in that long list of "race, sex, ethnicity, religion, creed, national origin", etc.

I actually bailed on myself as well after reading some of the original intentions of the law to see what it means. I do think it is meant to strike down laws that give protections to one group vs another but on the other hand my other OP could be correct still. I hope someone pulls up some originalist quotes of what the authors intended for the law to do. That would help out a lot.

 

[Cecilie1200]

What happens when you build the discrimination into the law like only punishing people who are black?

It is my understanding that laws which target a group based on race or ethnicity are invalid. This is why homosexual activists keep lobbying to have "sexual orientation" included in that long list of "race, sex, ethnicity, religion, creed, national origin", etc.

I actually bailed on myself as well after reading some of the original intentions of the law to see what it means. I do think it is meant to strike down laws that give protections to one group vs another but on the other hand my other OP could be correct still. I hope someone pulls up some originalist quotes of what the authors intended for the law to do. That would help out a lot.

Specifically, the Fourteenth Amendment was about defining what a citizen was, and to keep laws from being passed which essentially denied citizenship to people who met the criteria laid out in this amendment for citizenship. Its purpose, along with the Fifteenth Amendment, passed two years later, was to protect black people from laws designed to deny them their citizenship.

State-sanctioned marriage is not a right of citizenship, since our government also recognizes the marriages of people who are not US citizens, while they are in this country. All it requires is that they meet the criteria laid out for a state-sanctioned marriage.

 

[ihopehefails]

It is my understanding that laws which target a group based on race or ethnicity are invalid. This is why homosexual activists keep lobbying to have "sexual orientation" included in that long list of "race, sex, ethnicity, religion, creed, national origin", etc.

I actually bailed on myself as well after reading some of the original intentions of the law to see what it means. I do think it is meant to strike down laws that give protections to one group vs another but on the other hand my other OP could be correct still. I hope someone pulls up some originalist quotes of what the authors intended for the law to do. That would help out a lot.

Specifically, the Fourteenth Amendment was about defining what a citizen was, and to keep laws from being passed which essentially denied citizenship to people who met the criteria laid out in this amendment for citizenship. Its purpose, along with the Fifteenth Amendment, passed two years later, was to protect black people from laws designed to deny them their citizenship.

State-sanctioned marriage is not a right of citizenship, since our government also recognizes the marriages of people who are not US citizens, while they are in this country. All it requires is that they meet the criteria laid out for a state-sanctioned marriage.

What was the point of declaring a person a citizen of not only a state but also of the 'federal government'?

 

[Cecilie1200]

I actually bailed on myself as well after reading some of the original intentions of the law to see what it means. I do think it is meant to strike down laws that give protections to one group vs another but on the other hand my other OP could be correct still. I hope someone pulls up some originalist quotes of what the authors intended for the law to do. That would help out a lot.

Specifically, the Fourteenth Amendment was about defining what a citizen was, and to keep laws from being passed which essentially denied citizenship to people who met the criteria laid out in this amendment for citizenship. Its purpose, along with the Fifteenth Amendment, passed two years later, was to protect black people from laws designed to deny them their citizenship.

State-sanctioned marriage is not a right of citizenship, since our government also recognizes the marriages of people who are not US citizens, while they are in this country. All it requires is that they meet the criteria laid out for a state-sanctioned marriage.

What was the point of declaring a person a citizen of not only a state but also of the 'federal government'?

I would suppose to keep people from saying, "You might be a US citizen, boy, but you're not a citizen of Virginia, and we don't have to extend the rights of a citizen of the state of Virginia to you."

 

[ihopehefails]

Specifically, the Fourteenth Amendment was about defining what a citizen was, and to keep laws from being passed which essentially denied citizenship to people who met the criteria laid out in this amendment for citizenship. Its purpose, along with the Fifteenth Amendment, passed two years later, was to protect black people from laws designed to deny them their citizenship.

State-sanctioned marriage is not a right of citizenship, since our government also recognizes the marriages of people who are not US citizens, while they are in this country. All it requires is that they meet the criteria laid out for a state-sanctioned marriage.

What was the point of declaring a person a citizen of not only a state but also of the 'federal government'?

I would suppose to keep people from saying, "You might be a US citizen, boy, but you're not a citizen of Virginia, and we don't have to extend the rights of a citizen of the state of Virginia to you."

The more I look into the history of the 14th amendment the more I realize that it might be more complicated than I thought. It clearly says that a person can not be denied citizenship by any state if they meet certain conditions. This is good since it prevents the "boy, you ain't a citizen here" but I believe that the greater federal citizenship status was to prevent dread scott decisions where the court ruled that a black person was not a citizen of the US (federal) therefore allowing the federal courts to block someone's rights by declaring someone a non-citizen.

That is my opinion. I would like to read more about this amendment someday.

 

[Cecilie1200]

What was the point of declaring a person a citizen of not only a state but also of the 'federal government'?

I would suppose to keep people from saying, "You might be a US citizen, boy, but you're not a citizen of Virginia, and we don't have to extend the rights of a citizen of the state of Virginia to you."

The more I look into the history of the 14th amendment the more I realize that it might be more complicated than I thought. It clearly says that a person can not be denied citizenship by any state if they meet certain conditions. This is good since it prevents the "boy, you ain't a citizen here" but I believe that the greater federal citizenship status was to prevent dread scott decisions where the court ruled that a black person was not a citizen of the US (federal) therefore allowing the federal courts to block someone's rights by declaring someone a non-citizen.

That is my opinion. I would like to read more about this amendment someday.

Laws and legal decisions like that one were EXACTLY why the Fourteenth Amendment was passed. The lawmakers were trying to prevent any clever-dick legal maneuverings intended to get around granting citizenship rights to black people.

I believe voting was a big issue at the time, and one needs to be a US citizen to vote in Presidential elections, and a citizen of one's state of residence to vote in state elections. While there were certainly other civil rights being infringed on at that time, I think it's likely that voting was the one really prominent in people's minds when they thought about this amendment.