Section 1:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Quite possibly the most meaningful language in the Constitution.
I was at the production of What the Constitution Means to Me at ZACH Theatre last night and the crux of the production was centered around this language. It was a powerful production, one that I was not ready for, one my son said left him feeling very uncomfortable. The production did not really focus on today's attack on our Constitution but rather the history of how we as a nation have failed over and over to honor these promises.
At the end, in the lobby there was an active poll, shown with jars of colored cotton balls - do you feel protected by the Constitution... the crowd at the theatre skews women, queer, gay, etc. and so it was to no surprise that the "no" and "not sure" jars were more full than the "yes" jars. I watched and cisgender, white, ostensibly straight men (they were with women) were the ones putting green cotton balls in the "yes" jars.
The production is really about the story of a young woman and the intersection of equal rights and due process on the lives of women, including the lives of the women in her family.
The show is extremely powerful, and educational even for the lawyers in the crowd (hand raised).
I highly recommend you go check it out.
But to make this relevant to the political discussion, for the umpteenth time in the last 9-10 years, I had a visceral reaction knowing that my due process rights, my rights to equal protection under the law are at best aspirational, they are not guaranteed and they are not reliable at this time. I cried while watching, more than once.
We can do better, we need to do better.