Dear Editor:
In her letter published Sept. 24 Shirley Dawson had interesting questions and comments that I believe deserve reply.
"Where does the Supreme Court come off saying they are the ones who can interpret our Constitution"? After the Revolutionary War, the "Articles of Confederation" were too weak to establish a functioning nation. The Constitutional Convention in 1787 "scrapped" the articles and wrote the Constitution. Since no law may contravene the Constitution, if the Supreme Court is requested to review a law that does, the law must be declared invalid.
Ms. Dawson, this is what the Supreme Court was established to do.
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified following the Civil War. This amendment basically says that no state may deny the rights afforded by the Constitution to any individual or group. Thus, when the Supreme Court decided Obergefell v. Hodges and they declared that same sex partners had a right to marry, the Missouri Constitutional Amendment 2 (enacted in 2004) prohibiting same sex marriage was rendered invalid. This was all proper; this scheme protects you and me, as well as gays.
To Dawson's statement that religious freedoms really are being infringed upon (per her if you are a true believer in the Lord Jehovah you would know this); Ms. Dawson, I publicly challenge you to enunciate precisely what religious freedoms you have lost. Write to the editor of this paper and tell us one freedom that you used to enjoy, but do not now have. The "right" to discriminate against or denigrate others does not count.
To the comment "Oh, and we are under New Testament laws, not Old Testament;" this apparently responds to an example of Old Testament law I recently used in this forum to make a point on morality. This was intentional "with malice aforethought," intending to provoke (it worked).
Ms. Dawson, I have sat through many sermons that dealt with applicability of the Old Testament today; I have well more than enough "research," as you put it. If the "old rules" don't apply, why then do so many Christians flop their books open to Leviticus to justify why we can't allow same sex marriage? If only the "new rules" apply, then let us discuss that "love others as I have loved you" thing, or the "judge not" thing? Do these allow Christians to deny to others rights that the rest of us enjoy?
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