22-Take Off that Hat or I'll Punch You in the Face

What is a right?

What is a law?

What is the Constitution?

What does it matter?

In mathematics, a vector is a point of origin, fixed in time and space, that extends along a ray (an undefined line) in a specific multidimensional direction. The Constitution is much like a vector in that its point of origin founded this country and it now extends towards balancing freedoms between conflicting sides. The Civil War settled the initial argument of ultimate supremacy: the rights of the Union supersedes the rights of the State. Through the judicial and legislative processes, the Constitution is a dynamic road map of Federal, State, and individual rights, forming a hierarchy of standing – otherwise known as the implementation of precedence and law. For example, I have the right to exercise my frustration, a right superseded by your right not to be punched in the face. By law, I cannot punch you in the face and if I do, the State has the right to pursue, arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate me for a time; of course through the iterations of precedence, I now have the right to an attorney.

Rights are concepts of freedoms inherent to individuals, organizations, states, and the Union for the purpose of self-determination. Laws balance this fracturing chaos by scaling rights in terms of value – an ascending ladder from the vague to the absolute. Laws are specific, with all sorts of definitions, conditions of violation, demands of restitution, and terms of punishment. I have the right to live my life as I want. The law imposes restrictions on what I can and cannot do to others in pursuit of my dreams.

I am a son-of-a-lawyer who felt that where the law is undefined, the right of the People is implied. Dad said the Bill of Rights should consist of one line: all rights specifically not limited by the Constitution belong to the People. He felt creating a list restricted our rights to that list. He believed man's rights were ubiquitous and enumerable. As a staunch conservative libertarian, he saw the law's single purpose was to specify this hierarchy of rights through maturing legislation and sober rulings. In a nutshell, my father felt the Bill of Rights and most of the Amendments should have never been written because they should have been implied from the get-go. My father was also a utopian idealist.

I also remember him explaining the difference between criminal and civil law. Whenever the resulting injury of a dispute can be rectified financially, a civil case is filed. Should the injury be intentional harm to an individual(s)'s person-hood or if an individual(s) intends to compromise the sovereignty and welfare of society or the Government, then the ruling is criminal. In either case, the law's basic foundation is to delineate which right supersedes the other.

Marriage is a right – a contract of property, health, legal status, taxes, custody of children, debt, and so on. Marriage allows individuals to affirm their commitment to build a family: a socially cohesive unit that operates legally, financially, and civilly; the separation of church and state allows for, but does not decree, a religious option as well. The legal definition of marriage encapsulates the rights of the individuals within the union. The benefits of marriage far exceed the abstraction of this single word. Marriage is much more than a simple thing one might wear like a hat.

My definition of family: individuals sharing the yoke of today and the burden of preparing for tomorrow; family supports its members without condition of remuneration or fees of membership. Society is commerce; family, reverse. Commerce is mass profits of gain; family, peaceful moments of growth. Family is what makes it possible for most of us to get up each morning and submit to suffer the system. Denying the right of family is a clear injury: financially, ethically, morally, civilly, emotionally, medically, legally … but most egregiously, denying the right of family creates the greatest injury when it restricts simple access between members for no other reason than failing to be recognized as a family. We can attempt to calculate the financial losses LGBT families have incurred due to current law but what we cannot cogently speak to is the loss of their potential to have thrived. These laws injure society itself. For this reason, the intentional denial of this right by these states is criminal. Like the promise of forty acres and a mule, what reparations does this community deserve?

The legal argument has been made that one kind of marriage affects another. To date, no reasonable or logical argument of cause and effect has been established. Where is the injury? LGBT couples are clearly affected by the denial of the right to marry. The only harm traditional marriage can show is to its tradition; problem is that traditional marriage is not so traditional anymore. Marriage began as the first peace treaty between the groom and the father of the bride. Consider the caveman cliché: the young man sees the young woman, knocks her over the head, and returns home with her. Then one day, the father finds the couple and attempts to return his daughter by force. Brilliantly, the husband compensates the father with a few cows and all walk away happy, except of course for the woman who's head still hurts and belly has begun to grow.

Now, women have the Constitutional right to equal protection; they cannot be bartered over by men. Constitutional rights are supreme rights, they are the rights that top the lists and cannot be infringed upon. The Constitution exists to define rights, not to remove them; therefore, the idea that state governments would create their own amendments to selectively bar specific groups from a valuable right without cause defies the very concept of the Constitution. Moreover, consider the basics of precedence and legislation: competing rights vie for supremacy through writ and decree. When rights come into conflict, the government decides which will submit to the other.

The argument against marriage equality has one fatal flaw: a complete lack of conflicting rights. What specific right of heterosexual marriages is being injured by an LGBT marriage? Even if all of the factually dubious and purely outlandish arguments of these amendments outlawing marriage equality were somehow true, they still do not address the specific right(s) being infringed upon by the act of an LGBT marriage. Again, if my right to relieve my stress infringes upon your right to have a pummel-free face, then the law has the right to intervene.

Alternatively, the law cannot intervene simply because you don't like the fact that we share something in common and that makes you feel uncomfortable. For example, what if we're wearing an identical hat? You might panic should you see me, wearing that same hat, at that same store, at that same time. You might think you have the right to kick me out simply because you were in the store first and seeing me in this hat might make the public assume we are some how connected. This might make you upset because you don't like me and fundamentally hate what I stand for. In your eyes, my very presence in that store, wearing that hat, injures you because people might associate us and, God-forbid, the value of your hat might become so worthless that you throw it away. If you choose to toss your hat, I have no right to stop you. It's your hat. However according to the law, the subjective, egotistical, or religious harm you feel when you see me walk though that door has no legal standing in light of my right to exist, wearing my hat in that public place. Wear your hat or not; just don't tell me I can't wear mine because of how it makes you feel.

Why do people discriminate against those who cause them no harm? Recent experiments with six-month old babies and puppets demonstrate the inherent desire to draw the line between us and them. Though we are born with the disposition to like those who like what we like and dislike those who like things we dislike, that doesn't mean we cannot outgrow this myopic point of view. In fact, the progress of our Union has so steadfastly raced forward because of our ability to resist the melting pot and embrace the pot-luck buffet. America's success stems from its emerging diversity. Because individual rights tend towards preservation, it is only a matter of time before the LGBT community's right to marriage and family is written into law.

The Constitution matters as long as it continues on the path of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for every kind of person. The darkness of this threatening, criminal injustice imposed by certain states over the LGBT community will end. And as the People's voice grows louder, as the courts continue to rule on the merits, the dawn quickens. May the day when all who choose to wear this hat might do so without the risk of being punched in the face by the State or anyone else be tomorrow.