I don't have to -- because our FRiend already did the work, on the previous post. These pro-marriage propositions keep succeeding everywhere they are put to a vote, and if marriage defenders start now, the issue can be decided with a constitutional amendment.
Constitutional amendments are usually ratified by the legislature .... but there is another way to ratify amendments and decide matters as The People, and that is the state ratification convention, identical to those that ratified the Constitution in 1788-91, and also, coincidentally, identical to those that passed legal ordinances of secession in 1860 and 1861, most of which were ratified by the People by plebiscite.
Homosexual activists can sway courts and traduce legislators and governors (like Romney); but they haven't succeeded, so far, in bullswoggling the People. Ratification by convention and plebiscite would be a valid way to keep a DOMA amendment out of the hands of society's enemies.
Righto, but how many succeed by a 2/3 or 3/4 margin? Even in a single state?
2/3 of the state legislatures can require Congress to call a Convention to propose amendments. Whatever amendments are then proposed (which may very well not be limited to the issues the original proponents of the convention intended) still then requires ratification by 3/4 of the states, either by legislature or convention, as directed by Congress.
IOW, Congress is still heavily involved, even if you go the Convention route.
Do you have any particular reason, besides of course wishful thinking, for assuming that conventions would be less susceptible to the same influences that mess up our elections to Congress and to state legislatures?
[Your #27] I will be highly surprised if such an amendment ever even comes to the floor in the House or Senate, much less receiving 2/3 of the vote, much less 3/4 of the states ratifying.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the Framers provided a way for the People to end-run a faithless body of legislators, both as to the writing and to the ratification of amendments to the Constitution.
Amendments only pass when they aren’t controversial. The system the Founders designed requires overwhelming public support both nationally and regionally.
This statement is incorrect. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were ratified over the dead bodies of the citizenry of several States, which were made to ratify them at gunpoint in a "reorganization" that was originally masterminded by the evil John Quincy Adams, who suggested civil war as a "way around" the Constitution, to obtain power over the Southern States without their consent, using the rubric of federal power to guarantee each State a republican form of government ..... after the federal faction's liking. The objectors being mostly dead on the battlefield, the amendments carried, except for Amendment 14, which is "deemed" ratified by the victors, and made so by the Army. Repeatedly. Down to the present day.
These are extreme examples, you will object -- but I will aver that they are sufficient to falsify your statement and overthrow its authority.
I would also assert that Amendments 18 and 19 also carried by very narrow margins and were not widely popular, so much so that the 18th, the Volstead Act, was repealed; but unfortunately, we are stuck with the consequences, probably fatal, of woman suffrage.