“Like it or not, the Fourteenth Amendment is broad and sweeping in its scope”
I hate to sound rude but like it or not the SCOTUS has upheld Roe v Wade and apparently doesn’t give a hoot about the 14th amendment. Roe v Wade is now considered “settled law” The Supremes will likely never go back on it. So that argument is moot. Look for gay marriage to be the law of the land in the near future.
I would rather see abortion and gay marriage illegal in at least a good portion of the states than legal in all of them.
The only way that that “argument is moot” is if you accept the courts as the supreme power in this country, with law-making powers they were never granted, with veto powers they were never granted, above the other branches, above the Constitution, above We the People, above the laws of nature and nature’s God, above any obligation to the keeping of the sacred oath of public office.
Which means you’ve accepted a coup d’etat, the transforming of our country from a constitutional republic into a judicial oligarchy, and the complete and utter destruction of our very claim to self-government in liberty, under God. You’ve accepted the denial of the only legitimate raison d’etre of human government.
How ridiculously suicidal.
Since the thread is about presidential candidate Rand Paul, don’t you think that since he is running for federal office, we should be focused on what he will do in regards to abortion as president?
Roe vs. Wade is no more settled law than Plessy vs. Ferguson was settled law when it was about to be overturned (60 or so years after the fact) by Brown vs. the Topeka KS Board of Education. It is an accident of history and a matter of judicial treachery by several justices that, despite the many Republican appointments to SCOTUS since 1973, Roe vs. Wade has survived, damaged and eroded but survived. If Anthony Kennedy did as he was committed (in his vetting process) to do, Roe would have fallen in the Webster vs. Planned Barrenhood decision. Instead, he listened to his old Harvard law professor leftist social revolutionary Lawrence Tribe and became Sandra Day O'Kennedy to replace Sandra Day O'Connor (another faithless "Republican" jurist) who kept Roe alive as much as Herod Blackmun ever did.
No one ever said that overturning Roe would be a snap of the fingers but overturning Roe vs. Wade or any prospective "gay""marriage" decision would be a simple matter of better appointments to SCOTUS making a new majority (perhaps a transitory one as well).
If you hope to restore the Tenth Amendment, the hurdle will be A LOT higher. Full restoration of the Tenth Amendment would have many desirable effects from a conservative point of view but it would also require many revisions of American policy which would terrify much of the population. Imagine the striking down of Social Security, SSI, Medicare, Medicaid, and a cornucopia of central government busybodying going back at least to FDR and probably further. If you think Roe vs. Wade is settled law, just wait until SCOTUS might be tempted to a strict application of the Tenth Amendment. Can you spell R-E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N? The probability is that there would never be another conservative national election victory again.
"Gay""marriage" will sneak in the back door no matter what SCOTUS rules in the pending case. When numerous states have "legalized" the impossible (that two men may "marry" one another or two women may "marry" one another), all those perverts wishing to so "marry" have to do is go to one of those states to "marry" and then sue in their traditional marriage home state demanding that state's recognition of their status as "married" under the "law" of the state where they traded meaningless "vows." Further, the states have shown an increasing propensity to enact such legislation because the morals of their electorates have degenerated to a "do your own thing" level.
Coming next: The right of dog and cat lovers to "marry" their beloved pets or the right of threesomes or twelvesomes of whatever genders (or eventually of whatever ages or species) to engage in group marriage will loom if "gay""marriage" gets the "blessing" of SCOTUS. In the libertoonian ethic, why should anyone else really care /s? Social experimentation and revolution uber alles! Or so the windtunnels will say.
As to abortion, it may be progress from a conservative point of view to allow states to regulate, restrict or even prohibit abortion or the murder of innocent babies in utero in the hope that many will so regulate, restrict or, hopefully, prohibit abortion. Nonetheless, so long as New York City and State, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Fransicko, among others, remain home to fully functioning abortion mills, interstate travel provides the opportunity (albeit at a greater expense than at present) for the continued, if slightly reduced mass murder of babies. That is not the final goal and it is by no means enough.
Even Herod Blackmun conceded that if the personhood of the unborn were recognized then the Fourteenth Amendment would require the prohibition of abortion. Nothing stops Congress from recognizing that personhood other than the usual gang of political whores who run the Congress to the benefit of the Chambers of Crony Commerce.