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To: CarolinaGuitarman
Sodomy and gay marriage are things that the government is NOT empowered to interfere with... If the Constitution (state or federal) does not give a power to the government, the government does NOT have that power.

And since the federal government is NOT empowered to restrict these things, then those powers are reserved to the states, or to the people.

The government has no proper authority to interfere with any activity that does not infringe on the right to life, liberty, or property of another individual.

The Constitution does not say that.

30 posted on 07/06/2005 7:52:48 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: Tailgunner Joe
The Constitution does not say that [The government has no proper authority to interfere with any activity that does not infringe on the right to life, liberty, or property of another individual].

Didn't used to. It does now:

Amendment XIV, Section 1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

They have that power. They seem to have none to interefere with other state laws.
31 posted on 07/06/2005 7:57:57 PM PDT by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. The List-O-Links is at my homepage.)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

"And since the federal government is NOT empowered to restrict these things, then those powers are reserved to the states, or to the people."

Only if the State Constitutions specifically empower the states to interfere. If the state constitutions don't mention it, they cannot make up a government power out of thin air. Our rights do not need to be enumerated, but a government power DOES have to be specified by either the Federal or a State Constitution.

Even if a Constitution did include a clause that would allow the government to interfere with an activity that did not infringe on somebody else's rights to life, liberty, or property, that would just make that Constitutional clause tyrannical. There is never an excuse to make such a clause.


53 posted on 07/07/2005 9:25:34 PM PDT by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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