2301 students ought to read the following post by Andrew Sullivan, who has been an advocate for gay marriage since the 1990s. He details the evolving argument regarding what process ought to be used to establish such a right. If you read Federalist #10, and have understood the tension that exists between popular sovreignty and individual rights, the argument should seem familiar. Are rights best established in the courts, the legislature, or by the people in popular referenda? Each has their relative merits and demerits.
He points to the recent debates in the legislatures of Washington and New Jersey as an example of what can happen in the legislative branch that does not necessarily happen in the general public, and suggests that this was part of the reason we have a republic, not a pure democracy. Give it a read.
2301s ought to think about this in terms of the subject of the week 2 question regarding what unalienable rights might exist beyond the three listed in the Declaration of independence and how we might be able to determine what they are. The process used to determine this question may be more important than the substantive question of what these rights might end up being.
