Thursday, February 12, 2004

Much Ado About Nothing?

In today's USA Today Ronald Goldfarbmakes the case that there is no real danger in the Constitution being amended to define marriage. As he points out, there are countless amendments introduced every year in Congress, precisely because there is no hope they will ever become law. They are a cheap source of soundbites to use on the next campaign.

One point Goldfarb really nails is that "the amendment process is, as the constitutional scholar Edward Corwin has noted, ''highly undemocratic.'" I'll go further - the entire Constitution is highly undemocratic. When yahoos on the street bitch and moan about how "majority rules," it shows they have no understanding of how the Constitution is set up. It is designed to, as much as possible, allow citizen input in the law-making process while filtering out the whims and passions of popular movements.

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