The very purpose of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is to protect minority rights against majority voters. Every court decision that strikes down discriminatory legislation, including past Supreme Court decisions, affirming the fundamental rights to marry the person you love, overrules a majority decision.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the role of the Constitution in safeguarding the rights of minorities from the will of the majority.
David Boies highlights the fundamental purpose of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution: to ensure that the rights of minority groups are protected, even when faced with decisions made by the majority. This perspective stresses the importance of judicial oversight in upholding individual rights, particularly in matters such as marriage equality, where historical court decisions have reaffirmed that love should not be dictated by societal majorities.
In practice
During a speech advocating for marriage equality, this quote could underline the importance of protecting minority rights.
One of the things that the court held in Brown v. Board of Education is that government can't impose a badge of inferiority on some of its citizens. Yet that is exactly what Proposition 8 does with respect to gay and lesbian couples in California.
It's terribly important that we extend the promise of equality that the Supreme Court and that the district court articulated in the DOMA case and in the Perry case to all Americans in all 50 states.
We put fear and prejudice on trial, and fear and prejudice lost.
Unlike people of my generation, my children and my grandchildren have grown up living with, knowing, people who were outwardly gay and lesbian. And they have learned that they're just like us... And when you see that they're just like us, the rationale for discrimination melts away.
We're now segregating our schools based on economics; we're segregating our schools based on where a child's parents live. And it has the same corrosive effect of destroying people's opportunity as racial segregation did.
Astronomy is a cold, desert science, with all its pompous figures,-depends a little too much on the glass-grinder, too little on the mind. 'T is of no use to show us more planets and systems. We know already what matter is, and more or less of it does not signify.
Why does everyone take for granted that we don't learn to grow arms, but rather, are designed to grow arms? Similarly, we should conclude that in the case of the development of moral systems; there's a biological endowment which in effect requires us to develop a system of moral judgment and a theory of justice, if you like, that in fact has detailed applicability over an enormous range.
Security is when everything is settled, when nothing can happen to you; security is the denial of life.
Place is security, space is freedom.
I realized that all my life, my values were based upon typical middle-class American values: hard work, doing good, living well, owning things, following the rules & being the best I can be... but God clearly says, "those are not MY values. I value justice, mercy & humility.
Memory is so crazy! It's like we've got these drawers crammed with tons of useless stuff. Meanwhile, all the really important things we just keep forgetting, one after the other.
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