American marriage (was Question about New Testament )

[psychic_serpent]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Kathryn Cawte" 
<kcawte at b...> wrote:
>  
>  David
> 
> Really? Is there a serious attempt to pass such an amendment?
>  
> Maybe I'm just revealing my ignorance of how these things work, 
but 
> I would have imagined that the Supreme Court would block it (or 
> don't they have the power?) on the grounds that it's an attempt to 
> define 'marriage' rather than a genuine addition to the 
Constitution.
>  
> 
>  Me -
> 
> Actually if the US system works anything like the UK one then 
Congress could
> pass the amendment (although we don't have a constitution here so 
I could be
> wrong) and then someone would have to take the government to court 
to get it
> declared unconstitutional. Since you would have to start in a 
lower court
> and work your way up to the Supreme Court that could take years. 
> 
> K

Well, the way the US system works you can't actually declare a 
Constitutional amendment to be unconstitutional--it's PART of the 
Constitution, so it is by definition constitutional.  That's why an 
amendment is being proposed; anything that was a mere law could be 
overridden by the Supreme Court (if you had the right mix of 
people).  If a subsequent amendment to the US Constitution seems to 
abbrogate a previous one, the previous one is considered to be 
superseded by the new amendment (which isn't to say that the 
previous amendment would be completely thrown out, but that marriage 
would be considered an exception to the rule).

--Barb

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