U.S. Civil Liberties and Civil Rights, Essay Example

The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States constitution is a statute that provides a broad list of rights that citizens and natural persons in the United States are entitled to. It can also be said to be the main blueprint legislation that seeks to expand rather than constrict the rights of citizens in our day and age. Naturally, the amendment has been the source of countless legal arguments in a bid to interpret what the amendment is and what it is not. The historical facts indicate that among other things legal precedents have served as a justifiable basis for the interpretation and enforcement of the provisions enshrined in the amendment. It is in the light of the above that this essay will be taken a look at the question of same sex marriage and whether or not it contravenes provisions within the fourteenth amendment.

In my candid view the Fourteenth Amendment in many ways upholds the right to same sex marriage rather than contravenes it. Therefore, state laws prohibiting marriage rights to persons of the same sex violate both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. To cite a case in point, the infamous Supreme Court ruling of Loving vs Virginia provides clear answers to the question of upholding same sex marriage as a constitutional right to be protected in the United States much in the same way as other rights are being protected.

The Loving vs. Virginia case presents a question about marriage between two people of different races and different gender. Prior to this ruling, racial discrimination was an official government policy in most states, such as infringing on the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications. Clearly, this violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause. The clause also promises that before depriving a citizen of life, liberty or property, government must follow fair procedures. Thus, it is not always enough for the government just to act in accordance with whatever law there may happen to be. Citizens may also be entitled to have the government observe or offer fair procedures, whether or not those procedures have been provided for in the law on the basis of which it is acting. Action denying the process that is “due” would be unconstitutional. Suppose, for example, state law gives students a right to public education, but doesn’t say anything about discipline. Before the state could take that right away from a student, by expelling her for misbehavior, it would have to provide fair procedures “due process.”

Come to think of the fact that, the strongest case against same sex marriage is solely built on sectarian grounds, makes the restriction as absurd as nothing ever thought of. For very obvious reasons, outlawing same sex marriage is tantamount to the offensive practice that banned interracial marriage prior to the Loving vs Virginia case, rightfully so because existing sodomy laws have an inherently suspect intention of maintaining traditional sex roles without accommodation for individual preferences.

The justification for my argument sterns from the pronouncement of the court in its ruling that, “marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man.” Given that marriage is a fundamental right worthy of protection, there is every reason to extend this same right to every citizen of the United States, because conventionally and legally citizens are entitled and obligated to enjoy the same rights. Just as the Supreme Court ruled that anti-miscegenation laws were enacted with the crude intention of proliferating white supremacy ideologies, anti-same sex marriages are also designed to promote an entrenched view of traditional sexual orientation which has no legal merits in any way.

My argument finally closes with the strong view that same sex marriage is a constitutionally permissible as any other right enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment; in any case the Loving vr Virginia serves as a guiding precedent to prove my point.