Why Are Conservatives Calling for Constitutional Conventions to Ban Gay Marriage?

After years of efforts, true defenders of the Constitution have managed to stop the threat of a constitutional convention, the "Conference of the States" that allegedly would have worked to limit excessive spending by the Federal Government. Many states joined the call for a convention, until valiant men and women stood up and exposed the "con" that conservatives were falling for. Now many states are repealing their previous call for the convention, and the threat is over for the moment. Sadly, more conservatives are now calling for a constitutional convention to deal with gay marriage, and the CEO of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, has also called for a "con-con" to pressure Congress into repealing the anti-free-speech provisions of the McCain-Feingold law.

Lovers of liberty, there is nothing wrong with the Constitution. The problem is with politicians and judges who refuse to follow it. Rather than amend the Constitution or risk losing it altogether by calling a convention that could rework the whole thing, we must simply demand that the existing provisions of the Constitution be enforced. It would be easier to get a majority in Congress to live up to there duty than it would be to get 3/4 of the states or 2/3 of both houses of Congress to support a change in the Constitution.

A majority of Congress could easily act to limit spending, and they have a duty to do so - no need for an amendment. If they are voting to redistribute your income in ways far outside the limits of the Constitution, throw the bums out and elect someone who will honor their oath. Congress is the key. Congress can even restrain the out-of-control judiciary that seeks to destroy the family. Article 3, Section 2 allows Congress to limit their jurisdiction to certain kinds of cases, and gives Congress power to impeach rogue judges - and even to impeach Presidents.

Keep your hands of the Constitution, President Bush and others - we don't need to tinker with that noble document to deal with the excesses of elected or appointed officials who violate their oaths.

It is crucial to understand that once a constitution convention is called, all bets are off. We may be lulled into supporting it with promises that it would only deal with one issue, and that the rest of the document would not be touched. But such promises are cheap and deceptive.

Our only experience with a constitutional convention was 200 years ago, in the convention that gave us our present Constitution. The delegates then chose to ignore the reason for the convention -- improving the Articles of Confederation. Whatever they did presumably should have required the approval of all the states, according the established rules for changing the Articles of Confederation, but they ignored that restriction as well and only required that 9 of the 13 states ratify the document for it to become the law of the land. Surely we are foolish to think that a new convention would be limited to a single topic or that the convention would follow existing rules. Article V of the Constitution, which provides for the possibility of a convention, says nothing about what a convention may or may not do.

Thank God that wise, self-sacrificing, liberty-loving men were behind the original Constitutional Convention. In this day of massive government corruption, big money, and broad deception, I doubt that we can trust America's movers and shakers to give us anything better than the Constitution we already have. But looking at what they are already doing, we can trust them to give us a system with massive power in the hands of a few men, and restricted liberties for the masses. (See http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1995/vo11no12/vo11no12_warning.htm.)

Stopping gay marriage is hardly worth surrendering the liberty of a nation.

- Jeff Lindsay of http://www.jefflindsay.com/

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