SAME SEX MARRIAGE IS LEGAL IN AMERICA – SO SEAN HANNITY CALLS FOR A REWRITE OF THE CONSTITUTION

There’s a lot of sour grapes going around right wing circles since last week’s Supreme Court decisions that basically told that crowd to go to hell. Apparently, Sean Hannity thinks he can bring part of the country with him on the trip!

One People’s Project

On Friday, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that same sex coulples had a Constitutional right to marry, ending decades of activism and legislation for the gay community long fighting for the right. But for those on the right who not only opposed against lifting the ban but also supported maintaining the Affordable Care Act which was upheld by the Court on Thursday, the back-to-back ruling were such a crushing blow that many have called for drastic measures to prevent such losses ever again, from one pastor declaring he would set himself on fire if the same sex marriges were made legal only to deny he was going to, to some threatening to move to Canada because same sex marriges was legalized, not realizing they have been legal in Canada for a decade, to Texas Senator Ted Cruz proposing a constitutional amendment to require Supreme Court justices to face retention elections every eight years. Radio talk show host Sean Hannity provided another option – a constitutional convention, the last one being in 1787, which was where the US Constitution was born.

“It seems that we may…the time may be now, and I know people that working on this and I know state legislatures are working on this, and I know the movement is gaining momentum, that maybe we really need to get very strongly behind the concept of a convention of the states, which constitutionally we are allowed to do,” he said on his radio show Friday. “In other words, this is one tool our framers gave us, a mechanism that they have given us to get America on the right track, probably anticipating that this was a strong possibility at some point.”

“We have very, very difficult forces at work that want to fundamentally transform this country, so it may be time to kick these people in their political teeth as (fellow radio host Mark) Levin said to me today,” he said further, “and take power seized by the federal government and return it to the state legislatures and the people.”

Article V of the U.S. Constitution. At allows provides for two ways for amendments to be proposed, the one used for all 27 amendments to date being a requirement of two-thirds of both the House and Senate to approve a resolution, before sending it to the states for ratification. The second, which has not been done in the history of the Constitution, states that if two-thirds of state legislatures demand a meeting, Congress “shall call a convention for proposing amendments.”

The Constitution itself was created in a constitutional convention in 1787 which moved the United States from the Articles of Confederation into a structure that established institutional checks and balances. It was the last time such a convention was convened in the United States, and many constitutional scholars believe that should one be convened today, there is no limit to what can be considered and could possibly mean an entire rewrite of the Constitution. “There is no good theory under which the convention can be ‘limited’ to specific topics — far less to a specific proposed ‘text.”’ Michael S. Paulsen told the New York Times last year. 

However in recent years many on the right have been clamoring for a constitutional convention, including Sean Hannity, who has had Mark Levin on his television program to hold a town hall-style discussion about his Liberty Amendments, which, among other things imposes term limits on Congresspersons and Supreme Court justices, allows Congress and state legislatures to overturn court decisions, further allows states to override congressional decisions and to amend the Constitution, repeals the 17^th Amendment which requires Senators to be elected by citizens and returns that power to state legislatures, defines the Commerce Clause, which currently regulates and control economic activity and prevents businesses from engaging in discrimination and unsafe practices, to merely prevents states from impeding trade between them, and require photo ID when a person votes and limit early voting.

The idea of a Constitutional convention does not have a lot of support and one is likely to take place because of the consequences that even some on the far right have been quick to sound the alarm about. Hannity however, has not only been supportive of this, but also suggested just before President Obama’s second inauguration that that secession might be a possibility. “If the left keeps pushing, and pushing, and pushing, and demonizing and radicalizing America to the point that the America we grew up in – the America today looks nothing like it…if this pattern continues and gets worse and worse, I can see states saying ‘Forget it, I don’t want to be a part of this union anymore,” he said.

Hannity also last week conflated banning rap albums with banning the Confederate flag in the wake of the campaigns to remove them from statehouses and other public places in the South as well as from sale by retailers like Walmart.