Posted by
Reeson on Monday, January 15, 2007 8:25:09 PM
By all means, let's make everyone happy. Excerpts from
Time.com:
By Nancy Gibbs
Wisconsin prizes its history as a lab for progressive ideas, but customizing the Constitution may not be one the rest of the country wants to embrace.
On Tuesday the City Council in Madison will vote whether elected officials or city appointees can add to their oath of office, in which they swear to uphold the state and federal constitutions, a rejection of the parts they don't like. It started when Wisconsin amended its constitution to ban gay marriage, and a member of the city's Equal Opportunities Commission resigned rather than swear the traditional oath. Members of that board in particular, which is charged with protecting civil rights, felt torn about promising to uphold laws they felt were discriminatory. So the Council will debate whether public servants, during their swearing-in, can state that the oath was taken under protest and vow to work to strike "this section from the constitution and work to prevent any discriminatory impacts from its application." That way, supporters of the "anti-oath" say, they can take the oath with a clear conscience.
"Our Constitution," FDR said, "was not a perfect instrument, it is not perfect yet; but it provided a firm base upon which all manner of men of all races, colors and creeds could build our solid structure of democracy." That base becomes less firm when public servants, whether President or city commissioner, get to remove whichever pieces they dislike.