Flash, read George Will's wonderful article on SCOTUS and the 14th. He has been our pre-eminent conservative columnist for a long, long time.
Some GOP candidates becoming unhinged over gay marriage ruling - The Washington Post
In particular, the balance between founders' intent and our changing world:
Now, 147 years since ratification of the 14th Amendment, its guarantees of “equal protection of the laws” and “due process of law” mean that states, which hitherto controlled marriage law,
must recognize same-sex marriages. Anthony Kennedy’s
opinion for the court said: “The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty
as we learn its meaning.” (Emphasis added.)
Many conservatives detect in those five words a dismaying intimation of a “living Constitution” too malleable to limit government because it conforms to whatever shape serves transitory political and cultural impulses. Conservative wariness is wise. So too, however, is recognition that Chief Justice Warren was not wrong when, in
a 1958 caseconcerning the Eighth Amendment’s proscriptions of “cruel and unusual punishments,” he said: “The amendment must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.”
George F. Will writes a twice-weekly column on politics and domestic and foreign affairs. He began his column with The Post in 1974, and he received the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1977. He is also a contributor to FOX News’ daytime and primetime programming.