Noam Chomsky Quotes

When did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage? 1791? 1868, when the 14th Amendment was adopted?

The way that same-sex marriage should reach the federal level is that it absolutely should be decided by the Supreme Court as quickly as possible. It's a 14th Amendment issue. There's no argument about it.

History has shown us that, on extraordinarily rare occasions, it becomes necessary for the federal government to intervene on behalf of individuals whose 14th Amendment rights to legal due process and equal protection may be violated by a state.

As a matter of history, the Fourteenth Amendment was not understood to ban segregation on the basis of race.

I think we ought to leave the law exactly the way it is, the 14th amendment.

I'm not up for changing the Tenth Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment, the First Amendment or the Second Amendment.

The purpose that brought the fourteenth amendment into being was equality before the law, and equality, not separation, was written into the law.

The Constitution, as originally drawn, made no reference to the fact that all Americans wre considered equal members of society.

The Constitution did not mention women when it was first written, and it still doesn't.

Each state, so that it does not abridge the great fundamental rights belonging, under the Constitution, to all citizens, may grant or withhold such civil rights as it pleases; all that is required is that, in this respect, its laws shall be impartial.

No patent medicine was ever put to wider and more varied use than the Fourteenth Amendment.

When the 14th Amendment, equal protection clause was enacted, the galleries in the Senate were segregated. Now we have integration.

Defending birthright citizenship is about being on the right side of liberty. The 14th Amendment is a great legacy of the Republican Party.

Civil Rights ... include and embrace every right that pertains to the citizen.

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The Constitution nowhere mentions a specific right of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life, but the ‘liberty’ protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment covers more than those freedoms explicitly named in the Bill of Rights

A man's mere property status, without more, cannot be used by a state to test, qualify or limit his rights as a citizen of the United States.

Plessy v. Ferguson was a perversion of the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

The Constitution doesn’t say that whites alone shall have our basic rights.., but that we shall all have them

Ultimately, the reason we have a Constitution, the reason we have separation of powers, the reason we have the Fourteenth Amendment is to provide the courts with the opportunity to override the will of the people when the will of the people discriminates against a segment of our society.

A ban on same-sex marriage violates the state Constitution's equal protection clause.

Under our Constitution, if you're a bad citizen, you're still a citizen; that's the way we roll.

I'm an American. I have constitutional rights.

My rights are precious, and I value those provided to me through the United States Constitution so much.

The First Amendment, I think, is the jewel of our Constitution.