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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: craig crawford who wrote (239167)	3/17/2002 8:52:33 PM
From: Kevin Rose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

The 14th amendment guarantees equal protection under the law. Basically, that means you can't have a state law that discriminates against a specific group of people. For example, job discrimination based on race. If a state passed a law that said it was legal to refuse to hire someone because they were gay, it would be struck down by the courts on basis of violation of equal protection. Recently the Supreme Court struck down Colorado's Amendment 2, which sought to eliminate laws that protected homosexuals from discrimination. In striking down the Amendment as unconstitutional, Justice Kennedy wrote: "We cannot accept the view that Amendment 2's prohibition on specific legal protections does no more than deprive homosexuals of special rights. To the contrary, the amendment imposes a special disability on those persons alone. Homosexuals are forbidden the safeguards that others enjoy or may seek without constraint" Here, the Supreme Court identified homosexuals as qualifying as a "classification" of people who qualify for equal protection. Specifically, this is also why Hawaii's courts have upheld their gay marriage law. Now, if other states would just have the guts to pass similar laws, it is clear they would be upheld by our Constitution.