(04-19-2017 01:18 PM)Gitanole Wrote: (04-15-2017 09:52 AM)XLance Wrote: The majority of everyday people in North Carolina supported HB2. The voters had already passed a constitutional amendment to the State Constitution that marriage only existed between a man and a women. This is America.
Rights are not subject to majority vote. They are guaranteed by the US Constitution. They are unalienable.
This is America.
In North Carolina, as in many, if not most, southern states, there is a fundamental disagreement about what America is. It is the same disagreement that existed before the Civil War, and it hasn't changed in all that time.
What North Carolina Republicans are saying is, essentially, that when they agreed to rejoin the Union after the Civil War, they had their fingers crossed when they promised to adhere to the conditions attached to that decision. They believe they should have the right to nullify Federal laws they don't like.
For many North Carolina conservatives, their state is a sovereign entity, that should only be loosely tied to other states in a confederation whose primary purposes are to defend the confederated states against foreign military threats and provide a uniform currency. They seem to believe that the only rights individuals should have are those that they can defend by force - either military, political or economic force.
The US Constitution was a difficult compromise, achieved largely by being vague enough on key issues that divided northern and southern states that both sides could argue that it supported their polar opposite positions. Those same arguments are being made today.
If we were to start from scratch today, and try to draft a new constitution, there is zero chance one could be crafted in a way that would ever be ratified by the states. So we are stuck with our current impasse, and unlikely to break it in the lifetimes of anyone alive today.
We are two Americas, and we will stay that way.