gastineau
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2012-01-08 4-24-45-
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State & fed constitutions The x anti-gay-marriage ballot measures which passed yesterday were all amendments to their respective state constitutions. Yes, they can be undone by the state, but only by passing another constitutional amendment. This won't be easy in most states. For example, to amend the Virginia constitution, an amendment has to be passed by the state legislature by a x/x majority year, then the identical amendment has to pass the legislature by a x/x majority again the following year, and then the voters have to approve the identical amendment in an election. It's maybe more likely that these anti-gay state constitutional provisions will eventually be found to violate the U.S. (federal) constitution, in which case they will be declared invalid. You can't have something in your state constitution that violates the federal constitution. That's probably many years away, though. Bush can't amend the US Constitution himself. In fact, he has basiy no role in the process other than as cheerleader. Conservatives did try to pass an anti-gay-marriage US Constitutional amendment in Congress, but they failed. If they had succeeded, the amendment then would have gone out to the states for approval, and x/x of the states would have had to approve it. That takes many years and often fails -- the Equal Rights Amendment (for women) failed to pass x/x of the states. Hope this helps and wasn't too dull.
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