Opinion Streams

There is a national debate concerning not only whether marriage should be legally defined as a union between one man and one woman, but also whether the U.S. Constitution should be amended to include that definition.  The overwhelming majority of arguments for or against a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage are rooted in moral and/or religious values.  While I am sensitive to those arguments, I feel that the principles of our Constitution make a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage unwarranted.

Considering the Constitution’s 27 Amendments and considering the founders’ guiding principle of government of the people - not government over the people - an amendment defining marriage would have no place in the Constitution.  With the exceptions of the 13th and 14th Amendments and some procedural Amendments that define aspects of government function, the Amendments to the Constitution dictate the relationship between the federal government and U.S.

The Supreme Court essentially answered “Yes” when, in a 6-3 ruling yesterday it threw out the conviction of a man who murdered his ex-girlfriend.  The case involved a man convicted of fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend three weeks after she told police that he had choked her and threatened to slash her with a knife.  The trial court admitted her police statement to counter his self-defense plea, reasoning that, by killing her, the defendant had forfeited his Sixth Amendment right to confront his accuser.  The Supreme Court overturned the conviction, essentially ruling that the right of a defendant to confront his accuser extends even to the situation where the defendant has murdered his accuser.