For Whom The Constitution Tolls
The pell mell rush of states to amend their constitutions so as to deny civil marriages to gays and lesbians reminds me
of how profoundly ignorant Americans are regarding the purpose of the Constitution. I doubt that more than one percent
of Americans has ever paused to think about why the founding fathers concluded that our future American democracy
absolutely had to have a constitution. Why didn't they simply go ahead with a system of popular elections followed by
democratic lawmaking and governance? Such a state would certainly qualify as a pure democracy, and it would be happily
unencumbered by such irrelevancies as constitutional hindrances in the running of the nation.
Well, maybe not so 'happily'. The main reason the founding fathers were adamant about crafting and establishing a
constitution was a philosophical principle that had been debated and thought about in the colonies for many years prior
to American independence.
The foremost of the founders were well educated men who were well versed in the history and philosophy of Ancient
Greece. They had a special interest in what the the Greek thinkers had to say about the dangers of a pure, unconstrained
democracy. They believed such a state would inevitably degenerate into repressive mob rule. Certain facets of human
nature never change. The Greeks believed that in a democracy majorities would always sooner or later seek to curtail the
rights of disliked minorities or even persecute them with harsh laws.
The founding fathers of America were deeply fearful such a tyranny of the majority would eventually take form if there
was no fundamental document protecting unpopular minorities from the hatred and subsequent repression of an aroused
majority. The founders were mulling over this concern long before they ever attended the Constitutional Convention, and
they brought that concern with them.
The founders were patricians of substantial wealth and status. As is usually the case with a wealthy caste, they were
deeply worried the lumpenproletariat might one day rise up and try to take away their money. This fear appears to be
universal in all societies. Wealthy classes are always worried one group or another might try to take their money from
them. In short, a wealthy propertied class saw itself as a minority that might one day be persecuted by the unwashed,
unpropteried, and uneducated masses. Although this motive was hardly admirable, the basis for their concern was not
entirely irrational.
They therefore came to believe a strong constitution was imperative to throw up a wall of protection around minority
groups within society. Without it, one large majority group or another would, in a pure democracy, always eventually
seek to repress, or worse yet, dispossess targeted minorities.
What I'm leading up to is this: the Constitution was created primarily to protect minorities from oppression by
majorities. The American Constitution's main purpose was, and is, to protect racial, political, and economic minorities
from an inevitable tyranny of the majority.
The high court of Massachusetts has now stated that sexual-orientation minorities are at risk of being victims of
exactly the kind of repression feared by the founders. If the system were to work as the founders hoped it would, those
minorities would be ensconced in a protective shell provided by the state or federal governments in the form of
constitutional barriers.
Hard as this may be for most Americans to accept, the US Constitution exists primarily for the protection of minorities
such as gays and lesbians. The great document was created not for the majority of Americans, who unfortunately often
fear or hate certain minorities. It was created to protect those minorities from persecution by tyrannical majorities.
It was never thought necessary to protect the majorities in a democratic state. As the founders saw it, majorities will
generally do just fine without special protections.
As one listens to and reads the polemics surrounding the debate over gay rights, one has to conclude that Americans
believe the exact opposite — that the Constitution exists to protect the majority from disliked minorities. In order to
convert this absurd notion into a reality, a stream of states has moved to amend their constitutions so as to deny to
gay or lesbian couples the right to enter into the exact same civil contracts that heterosexual couples are allowed to
enter into.
I can scarcely think of a sadder irony.
ENDS