By Benjamin M. Haber
What should not be overlooked in the exuberance over the same-sex marriage decision by the U.S. Supreme Court (“Let Freedom Ring,” July 3 issue), are the words Justice Anthony Kennedy included in the court’s majority opinion, words that represent significant meanings beyond the same-sex marriage issue.
The justice stated: “The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The generators that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all its dimensions and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.”
Justice Kennedy’s words are a direct rebuke to Justice Scalia’s so-called originalist claim that these documents can only be read as they were understood in the 1700s, and make it clear our Constitution, Bill of Rights and Amendments do not contain words embedded in concrete, but words that are alive and take into account changing times and values.
The founding fathers were an unusual group of well-educated and intelligent persons committed to creating a republic unlike anything that preceded it. It makes no sense that these persons intended future generations be shackled by beliefs then existing and require dozens, if not more, Herculean efforts to enact amendments when the application of common sense evidenced a proper meaning and interpretation.
“Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness” does not mean only for those in this country in the 1700s, but for all people forever.
Benjamin M. Haber
Flushing
