Today is my anniversay. Thanks for allowing this NC.
In 1857 the Supreme Court decided that when the Framers of the Constitution spoke of citizens, they did not mean blacks because they were not considered part of the community, but instead considered property. Blacks are not entitled to the same protection of the Constitution, which allowed slave states to reclaim slaves that had escaped from the south to the free states in the north. Just over one hundred-fifty the United States of America elected it’s first black president. How did we get here?
For the sake of brevity, I will just look at the equal protection the Constitution guarantees us. The Fourteenth Amendment reads, in part, as follows:
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.
This section of the amendment is known as the Equal Protection Clause. It has played a pivotal role for the advancement of civil rights. There are different classes of people that are more protected than others due to a history of prejudices against them. This class is referred to as a suspect class. People who are left-handed are not considered a suspect class. Religion is a suspect class. Smokers are not a suspect class.
Race most definitely is a suspect class. If the state acts in a way that can be viewed as discrimination against a suspect class, it better have a good reason. The burden of proof is on the state to show they are not discriminating against that class. If the state acts in a way against a class of people who are not considered suspect, the burden is on the challenging party to prove the act causes an undue burden on them. Separate schools for black and white children? Race is a suspect class. The state has no compelling reason to segregate them. Separate is not equal and now a little girl in Kansas can join her white classmates in school. Ban smoking in restaurants? Smokers are not a suspect class. Going outside to smoke does not cause an undue burden.
With the passage of Amendment 1, North Carolina becomes the thirty-first state to impose such a ban. There are have also been state and local governments across the country that refuses to consider sexual orientation a class to be protected in terms of employment or harassment. Do you already protect against discrimination based on race, sex, creed, religion, color, or national origin? You’re going to have a fight on your hands if you try to add sexual orientation to that list.
Because of these events, I believe we are moving closer to creating a new suspect class in the eyes of the Supreme Court. There already have been a few federal courts that have ruled sexual orientation is a suspect class. If this happens, a lot of these statues are going to tumble and the burden of proof will fall on the state. Want to ban gay marriage? What’s your compelling reason? Because the Bible said so? Sorry, that does not hold.
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