Constitutional Changes of the Future—Part 4

State Action on privileges and immunities clause of 14th Amendment

The privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has been interpreted by the Supreme Court since the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 as applying only to the states. It has not been applied to individual private citizens or private institutions. In other words, if a state law violates a person’s privileges and immunities under the Bill of Rights, then the federal courts will hear and judge the complaint. But…if a private person or institution violates these privileges and immunities, then, the federal government would not assume the authority to judge between the two competing parties. It is only after a state steps in to adjudicate a case of alleged violation of rights that a federal court can act.

In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has heard cases for adjudication between private organizations and other agencies without the intervention of state courts. This tendency has made the Fourteenth Amendment a party to a further takeover of judicial power by federal courts. The federal government has increasingly treated private institutions as the equivalent of the state, thereby extending public oversight in a way the framers of our Constitution never intended.

If this tendency continues, the policies of private institutions in the various states will have to pass the scrutiny and receive the imprimatur of federal judges.

The federal judiciary violates the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in other ways by invading common sense and precedent: For instance, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (amended) clearly defines groups that deserve to be protected under the Fourteenth Amendment, e.g., racial and religious groups, etc. That Act does not list sexual orientation as a protected group. But…the Supreme Court in a decision regarding preferential housing for homosexuals in Boulder, Colorado in recent years, found in favor of homosexuals under the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, thus violating the rights of recognized people groups in Boulder. It mattered not to the Court that bills to recognize homosexuals as a special privileged group have been voted down in Congress every year for at least 15 years.

Well…we can see that the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is being misused by liberal groups to change the meaning and intent of the Constitution. More of this activity will be up-coming in the future if nothing is done to stop this judicial take-over.