Extemporaneous musings, occasionally poetic, about life in its richly varied dimensions, especially as relates to history, theology, law, literature, science, by one who is an attorney, ordained minister, historian, writer, and African American.
Thursday, July 9, 2015
14th Amendment's 147th birthday
This extremely broadly-interpreted, Civil War-era, 14th Amendment has been interpreted to do everything from: conferring unspecified--often illusory--"rights of citizenship" on descendants of freed African slaves; to conferring Due Process and Equal Protection of Law protections to white citizens; to authorizing the "marriage" of LBGT (lesbian-gay) citizens, in all 50 states, most recently . One thing it has never done, as it was originally designed to do, is to witness the federal judicial enforcement of section 2 of its provisions, which punitively reduces Congressional representation in states that deny descendants of freedmen the equal right to vote!