[tahiti]

"...then minorities will have to convince a majority in an elected legislature to grant them a new right."

Grant them a new right!!!!

This is FreeRepublic.com, not Democratic Underground.

Madison argues "rights retained by the people" (Amendment IX) directly constrained congressional power.

Madison [is] committed to the dual strategy of limiting powers and protecting rights.

Senator Lyman, principal draftsman of both the Thirteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, posed the question “…what rights do citizens of the United States have?” He answered, “They are those inherent, fundamental rights which belong to free citizens or free men, in all countries, such as the rights enumerated in this bill, and they belong to them in all the States of the Union.” As examples of “natural rights” and “inalienable rights” he offered these: “The right of personal security, the right of personal liberty, and the right to acquire and enjoy property.”

If the founding generation that adopted the Ninth Amendment and the generation that adopted the Fourteenth Amendment were correct about natural rights, then constitutional legitimacy requires a lawmaking process that provides an assurance that the rights retained by the people, or the privileges and immunities of citizens, will not be disparaged, denied, or abridged.

We do not get our "rights" from the legislature. I am stunned that you would make such a remark.

[queenkathy]

This is going to be appealed. Which court will it go to and what is the makeup of that court? Anyone know?

[goldstategop]

Ok. Our rights are inherent and God-given. Its not a legislature's place to give them or take them away. I should have expressed it in the sense of new privileges. Which is what gays really want. There is no entitlement to get married nor ought there to be one.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)