John and Curt raise some interesting and amusing examples of what my ammendment might do- however I do believe that unattractive people are indeed discriminated against in the workplace. I’ve seen it in action where a totally unqualified person was put in a position of great responsibility in a field in which he had absolutely no experience- and I think it was because he happens to look good in a suit.
The right of a woman to her own reproductive autonomy, including the right to terminate any pregnancy at any time for any reason, shall not be infringed.
Alternatively:
The government shall make no law abridging the rights of any two consenting adults, regardless of race, gender or creed, to pursue any relationship of their choosing, up to and including sexual relations, cohabitation, marriage and the parenting of children.
DtC: Would that include two consenting adults who agree to enter a contract where one individual works for the other individual for less than minimum wage?
I thought of the same thing that ammo52 did.
Let’s take out that dubious “right to bear arms” clause in the 2nd Amendment.
Neither Congress nor any state shall make or enforce any law prohibiting consensual transactions among adult citizens.
That’s not a relationship.
Define relationship.
Lessee here:
**1) Right to Vote: **
The several states may choose, if they wish, to exclude clinically insane persons and those currently incarcerated from the voter rolls. Otherwise, the right to vote for candidates for the Presidency, the Vice-Presidency, and Congress, shall be universal among those citizens of eighteen years of age or older.
2) Right to Bear Firearms:
The several states may choose, if they wish, to disallow clinically insane persons and those convicted in the past of felonies and other violent crimes from possessing and bearing firearms. Otherwise, the right to bear firearms shall be a limited but universal right among those citizens of eighteen years of age or older. The several states may choose to restrict the types of firearms that persons may possess within their borders, so long as such restrictions do not make it unduly difficult for every citizen so entitled to possess some type of reliable firearm.
3) No Gerrymandering:
Within each state, United States Congressional districts of equal population shall be determined by the method of least squares. That is, the districts shall be drawn in a way that minimizes the sum of the squares of the distances between each voter and the center of population of that voter’s Congressional district.
**4) Limiting Undeclared Wars: **
The government of the United States may not place more than twenty thousand armed representatives of the United States in a country absent an invitation from the duly constituted leaders of that country, nor may it spend more than one billion dollars (in 2000 dollars) on activities of any sort in a country in any one fiscal or calendar year, without such an invitation, unless Congress has formally declared war on that country.
A personal romantic or sexual involvement.
I’m really not interested in getting all cutesy with the wording. I think my intent was pretty clear. I want to bar the government from discriminating between same-sex and opposite-sex relationships.
Well, its funny to see the OPs desire to enshrine their own particular religous beliefs int eh constitution.
because the law is informed by morality, and morality is informed by society, and society is a living, breathing, changing thing.
Uh huh. And when this thing called society speaks, who does it talk to? If it doesnt have a voice, who knows its thoughts? Whatever.
My 26th would just be in the tradition of so many amendments before; clarifying existing legal concepts. It would necessarily need to be written in multiple paragraphs of legaleeze, but this is the gist:
That the governments of the US and the States themselves and all governments under their jurisdiction will make no law based purely on moral or religous beliefs of any kind. That hereunto, any and all legislation shall be based soley and exclusively on preserving and or enhancing the greatest interest of the greatest amount of the people, and that said legislation must demonstrate a reasonable proof of such intent; reasonable proof being proof based on the methods and understandings of the physical sciences in their capacity as the only body of knowledge common to humankind. Any existing or future legislation that cannot meet this criteria is hereby null and void.
Voodoo:
“The greatest interest of the greatest amount of people” is a moral precept. Your amendment contradicts iteslf. Laws must be based on some sort of moral assumptions. Sorry…
“No law shall discriminate against any individual, nor shall any individual be denied legal rights or privileges, on the basis of his or her age. The Constitutional age limits for the President, Senate, and House of Representatives are hereby repealed.”
or
“The power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce shall not be construed to allow regulation of transactions or activities that take place within a single state.”
or
“No patent, trademark, copyright, or other intellectual property rights shall be extended retroactively, and all prior retroactive extensions are hereby repealed. No copyright or patent term shall be longer than the life of the oldest person ever to live in the United States.”
The government shall not under any circumstances govern, regulate, or monitor any individual’s private acts unless those acts harm the Union or the life, body, or liberty of another individual. These extreme case should be determined and authorized in accordance to the methods outlined in previous sections of this Constitution.
I don’t think we need new amendments until the Supreme Court, Congress, and President start reading the old ones.
A new amendment just gives them something else to reinterpret.
I think our Constitution needs plenty of amending so my first choice would be something to help that along:
Section 1. The fifth article of this Constitution is hereby repealed.
Section 2. The President of the United States, Vice President of the United States, Speaker of the House of Representatives, President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Senate Majority Leader, House Majority Leader, House Minority Leader, or Governors of the several States may propose Amendments to this Constitution, which upon the public signatures of three fifths of the Congress, including the President of the Senate, may be submitted to the People of the United States for ratification. Members of Congress may sign multiple Amendments. The President of the United States may sign only a single Amendment. No signature, once affixed, shall be removed.
Section 3. Two thirds of the Congress, or a like proportion of the legislatures of the several States, may call a Convention for proposing an Amendment which may be submitted to the People of the United States for ratification.
Section 4. Amendments shall be temporarily valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified both by a majority of the People of the United States and by a majority of the several States. Amendments shall be ratified only during the regular Congressional election and must be reratified ten years later to become a permanent Part of this Constitution.
Section 5. One year prior to the election the Archivist of the United States shall publicly announce the Amendment to be under consideration. Only one Amendment may be considered at a time with precedence given to any Amendment requiring reratification followed by an Amendment proposed by Convention and thereafter to the Amendment with the highest number of Congressional signatures. If no single Amendment has the highest number of Congressional signatures then precedence shall be given to the one bearing the signature the President of the United States or, if none is so graced, to the first to attain all its signatures. Once consideration of an Amendment has begun all other proposed Amendments are null and void.
Section 6. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section 7. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three fourths of the several States.
Twenty-eighth? What’s currently Number Twenty-seven? 'Cause the list I consulted only has twenty-six.
Also, isn’t the Twenty-eighth reserved for when we need to allow naturalized citizens to seek and hold the Presidency (dumb Repo Man joke)?
Be that as it may, here’s my contribution for a new amendment:
There is so a right to privacy, and it is not to be abridged absent a compelling state interest.
Such state interests will be reviewed publicly at a period not to exceed every five years, for not less than twenty years, before any abridgement may be considered permanently established as serving a compelling state interest. Failure to demonstrate the intended benefit and successfully refute claims of unintended consequences shall be cause for the abridgement to be disallowed.
Watch out for compelling state interests. The Supreme Court seems to think that anything is a compelling state interest.
[nitpick]
I think you mean Demolition Man.
[/nitpick]
"Amendment XXVII: No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened. "
Proposed as part of the original Bill of Rights, but not ratified until 1992 [sic]. Congress got around that by voting for automatic “cost of living” increases that take effect unless they vote otherwise.
Oh, yes, and dump the Electoral College in favor of a straight popular vote.
Not at all. Self interest is a material, physical thing. Morality is an immaterial, non-physical thing; i.e it doesnt exist outside of peoples minds.
Murder, robbery, rape, etc; those things are all illegal becuase they are a demonstrable threat to the self interest of the vast majority. Nothing ‘moral’ about it.