In a recent article about the federal judge who made the ruling on the gay marriage ban in California, Maggie Gallagher was quoted as saying “… our Founding Fathers who, I promise you would be shocked by the courts that imagine they have the right to put gay marriage in our Constitution.” They may be also shocked that Ms. Gallagher has the right to vote and own property. Imagine the chagrin of most of our Founding Fathers that Clarence Thomas sits on the Supreme Court.
As great as some of our Founding Fathers were, they were still flawed human beings who produced a document that allowed slavery and called them three-fifths of a person. They were intelligent enough to provide a constitution that allowed for flexibility by allowing it to be amended. The Founding Fathers were not around when the 14th Amendment was added to the Constitution. It is the equal protection clause in that amendment on which the judge based his ruling. It is a legal ruling based on an interpretation of the law, not a statement of sexual orientation. Nobody has put gay marriage into the Constitution. The judge has only ruled that gays must have equal rights under the Constitution.
Rights are guaranteed under the Constitution. Constitutional rights protect minorities from the majority. The majority has no right to deny the basic rights of individuals or minority groups. Conservatives today seem to revere the Founding Fathers while they forget that the Founding Fathers were the political progressives of their day. Had Ms. Gallagher and her crowd been around in the 1770s, they most likely would have supported the king of England.
Ms. Gallagher I’m sure is very happy with the rights she now has. It is too bad that she doesn’t want all Americans to share equally the rights guaranteed under the Constitution.
Jack D. Miller,
Middleburg
Letters
Rights for all
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Faith and public funds
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Bad plan
NetSummary
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Pay for home care
On Dec. 15, President Barack Obama announced a proposed rule that would extend federal minimum wage and overtime protections to home care workers. This is an exciting development for home care workers across the country.
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Public investment
Public investment? Pennsylvania's funding of our local schools is a crying shame. Sure, times are tough, but the state managed to come up with $10 million for Bucknell University, a private school, to have a new bookstore in downtown Lewisburg. I'm still not sure how Bucknell wrangled that deal or why a private university is entitled to public funding.
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Ill-conceived measure
Ill-conceived plan. It is imperative that motorists drive safely and courteously when approaching bicyclists. The only problem with the new bicyclist law requiring motorists to allow four feet of distance between their cars and the bicyclists is that this will place the car in the opposing travel lane or require it to cross the yellow line in a no-passing zone.
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Heroic workers
I was astounded when I saw Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011's headline "Workers tackle robber over $603".
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Cell phone ban
Last week I was reading "Cell ban tough to enforce" in The Daily Item and it was very controversial.
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Worth $603?
The article on Dec. 20 in the edition of The Daily Item about the Dollar Tree robber caught my interest.
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Alarming ailment
In the Dec. 20, 2011 issue of The Daily Item, I read the article "Childhood disorder bolsters research."
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Public obligation
As part of her argument for home schooling, "Studying in Pajamas", Jan. 20, Joanna Wert dismisses public schools and "the majority of American workers" with a few condescending generalizations. She goes on to extol her own children's virtues and accomplishments, and then lists famous people whom she claims were home-schooled.
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Faith and public funds
