Posted on 06/23/2006 9:47:54 PM PDT by DBeers
Supporters of a constitutional amendment to keep the courts from legalizing homosexual marriage, stunned by poor support in the recent Senate vote, are beginning a campaign for a constitutional convention.
The provision of the Constitution's Article V requiring such a convention if called by two-thirds of the state legislatures has never been used. Fear of throwing the Constitution open to general amendment has overridden support for specific issues. However, key advocates of barring gay marriages believe the constitutional convention strategy will keep the issue alive.
A recent memo circulated within the anti-gay marriage coalition lists Princeton Professor Robby George, Tony Perkins and Chuck Donovan of the Family Research Council, and conservative financial consultant Frank Cannon as favoring the strategy.
Hopefully not.
The last thing we need are liberals getting an open shot at changing the Constitution to suit their needs. Yes, I know, liberals aren't advocating this, but you're insane if you think they wouldn't have a say in the actual convention.
no
I'd support a ConCon, if only to figure out what they will do about the 2nd Amendment.
I agree. The half dozen real conservatives we have up there wouldn't be able to keep things in line.
We'd wind up in the EU before it was done.
Well said. There was a call for a constitutional convention in the, hmm, 1970s and 1980s I think, I forget the issue, and the call was passed by a few state legislatures.
They'll do what politicians always do: trade it away for something they really care about.
The magic numer is 13. If 13 states stand firm, no deal. 75% of the States need to ratify anything an ammending convention proposes. 13 can block.
This would be a disaster and taken over by the Left. There is no need for a Convention.
A constitutional convention is a conservative's nightmare.
No, no, never.
A recent memo circulated within the anti-gay marriage coalition lists Princeton Professor Robby George, Tony Perkins and Chuck Donovan of the Family Research Council, and conservative financial consultant Frank Cannon as favoring the strategy.
Anti-gay marriage coalition? Is this just another name for society in general?
From what I can garner talk of a Constitutional Convention is just talk right now.
However, some may be interested in the names of some of the supposed talkers. Princeton Professor Robby George is quite a character -he eats liberals for breakfast when engaging them in debate on issues such as abortion, marriage, etcetera (google him and enjoy)...
The Founding Father's designed two methods of proposing amendments to the Constitution in Article V, and for good reason. The first method allowed the Federal Government to propose amendments. However, the founding Father's feared that if the Federal government was the only level of the government that could propose amendments it would usurp power and refuse to heed any calls by the states for reform.
The states also feared that the national government would use this power to silence them and prevent them from proposing reasonable amendments. The state legislatures of the original 13 states were leary of having their powers usurped by a tyrannical federal government, and the founders were aware that the Constitution would likely not be ratified if the constitution did not alleviate the states fears of this. So the founders added the state convention method enabling the states to circumvent the national government if it should ever try to silence the states from proposing amendments. It is thus an important part of checks and balances between the Federal government and state governments and one of the last remaing defenses that states have left against the Federal government, since the adoption of the 17th amendment. It also reveals a lost principle of Federalism;the Primary unit of the system is not supposed to be the Federal Government, it is the sovereign states for whom the Federald government is an agent.
The states existed before the constitution, and they exist with or without the US Constitution. The states made the federal government and not the other way around
I think they should have a Con Con and readopt the version of the Constitution that we had in 1789. Thus, repealing most of the unnecessary amendments of the 20th century.
oh dear lord NO.
Maybe they could call the convention in Secret like they did for the original one. That would really freak people out. It would be scary though to see how the media would try to influence the convention members. They would have to be cloistered in and secluded from the outside world and sworn to secrecy like cardinals at a papal conclave in order to prevent their judgement from being clouded by mob pressure. Remember that any articles produced by a convention would have to be ratified by 38 states.
Unfortunately, all of the delegates would be partisan. At the original convention there were no political parties present. I would not like to see one party trying to engineer an electoral system to permanently in power.
We already lost federalism, I suppose it is the next logical step.
Constitutional convention with the lefties at such high numbers probably means kiss the bill of rights goodbye...
Not to mention that most states' legislatures are bicameral, so in order to block you only need to get one chamber of the legislature in 13 states to block. If you can get one legislative chamber in 13 different states to block, no amendment can be ratified.
No... the cure could be worse than the disease.
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