Take this test.

If you were asked to vote on the following laws, how would you vote?

Would you vote in favor of a law that required news media to submit any article to an appointed accuracy review commission before publication?

Would you vote in favor of a law that required all public officeholders to take their oath using a Christian or Jewish Bible?

Would you vote in favor of a law allowing cities and towns to pass zoning ordnances forbidding churches or temples or mosques in their community?

Would you vote to allow government tax dollars to support religious schools?

Do you think it should be made illegal for companies to hire lobbyists to press Congress for what they want?

Would you support a law that allows the government to arrest and detain citizens suspected of terrorist activity without having to show any evidence of guilt to a court?

Would you support a law that did not allow bail for accused sex offenders, requiring them to be kept in jail until trial?

If someone commits a crime do you think they should be required to pay for their own lawyer, or apply for private charity?

If you voted yes on any of these eight items, you have voted against a provision in the Bill of Rights in The United States Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court. You would not be alone. I did an informal survey of 28 friends, and more than half (15) of them were in favor of at removing at least one of these rights (seven would remove two or more).

Surveys show that most Americans do not understand the Bill of Rights and the protections it offers. For example, in a recent survey by the Bill of Rights Institute, 53% social studies teachers answered “Yes” when asked whether the government can legally stop publication of news in advance simply by claiming that the information may damage national security. The Supreme Court ruled this unconstitutional in 1971.

One of the drawbacks of a democratic government is that it can become a tool for the “tyranny of the majority”. The founders of our form of government made the Bill of Rights part of the Constitution so that no legislature could deny its carefully enumerated rights simply by passing a bill, even if this bill were supported by a majority of voters.

The only way to take these rights away from citizens is to amend the Constitution, and the founders made that very difficult. The battle must be fought not only in Congress but also in every state legislature. That is why the “Equal Rights Amendment” –despite broad support and years of effort — did not pass.

Those who set up the Massachusetts constitution put in a different system. They made it much easier for the will of the people to be expressed in the form of an amendment. One might call it true democracy, but there are times when true democracy is not a good idea.

If the framers had set up a similar system, our guess is that much of the Bill of Rights would have been repealed by now. There are times — and we believe that the amendment forbidding gay marriage is one of them — where the will of the people should not be followed.

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