Fox dismisses the 14th Amendment as the "anchor baby amendment"
August 04, 2010 1:16 pm ET by Adam Shah
On Fox & Friends, co-host Clayton Morris labeled the 14th Amendment the "anchor baby amendment." This is part of a campaign by the right-wing media to change the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment is actually the amendment that forms the basis for many of the rights Americans enjoy today, including the right to desegregated public schools; the right to marry someone of a different race; and the requirement that states respect the right to keep and bear arms.
Trivializing the 14th Amendment as the "anchor baby amendment" is just sad. The 14th Amendment is actually the amendment that added the Equal Protection Clause, state Due Process Clause, national Privileges and Immunities Clause, and the citizenship clause to the Constitution.
As such, the 14th Amendment is the first time the notion of equality was explicitly included in the Constitution and is the basis for many of the constitutional rights that we all take for granted.
Here are just a few of the important decisions the Supreme Court has made under the 14th Amendment that Morris dismisses with the phrase "anchor baby amendment":
- Segregated schools are unconstitutional (Brown v. Board of Education)
- Bans on interracial marriage are unconstitutional (Loving v. Virginia)
- Discrimination on the basis of sex is generally unconstitutional (Craig v. Boren)
- Legislative districts must be equally apportioned, i.e., one person, one vote (Reynolds v. Sims)
- The Constitution has a right to privacy, and that right means states may not outlaw access to birth control (Griswold v. Connecticut)
- States, like the federal government, generally must seek a warrant before searching your house (Mapp v. Ohio)
- States, like the federal government, must provide lawyers to criminal defendants (Gideon v. Wainright)
- States, like the federal government, must abide by the Second Amendment individual right to bear arms (McDonald v. City of Chicago)
- States may not pass a law criminalizing homosexual sex between consenting adults (Lawrence v. Texas)
So the vast majority of the Republican party has a vested interest in keeping the Fourteenth Amendment intact.
As for polling, the American Public, at large, is quite easily duped. That's why the Republicans have invested so much time and money into obtaining domination of the Mass Media.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone could fashion a poll supporting the 14th Amendment's repeal right now. Maybe they already have, but I haven't seen it.
But that's not important to the fallacy of your point: Whether they are here legally or illegally, a baby born here serves, in practice, to anchor non-citizens and improve their chances for citizenship.
But that's not important to the fallacy of your point: Whether they are here legally or illegally, a baby born here serves, in practice, to anchor non-citizens and improve their chances for citizenship.
I believe the 14th amendment is how we'll defeat laws like the immigration one from Arizona! And I think that the knowledge by the dishonest people on the right who KNOW that it's the 14th amendment that will disallow that law to be upheld that's causing them to attack the amendment now.
They also stood by and did nothing while the Bush administration tossed out the 4th, 5th and 6th amendments if someone was accused of being a terrorist.
Name an American citizen that was denied their rights.
The right's racism has become so overt and so blatant I'm surprised they haven't gone back to using the "N" word.
Their touting of their respect for "traditional values" is shown to be just so much hogwash as soon as those "traditional values" become inconvenient, particularly if they safeguard those who are the object of their hatred.
These characters are simply nasty liars.
I cannot overstate my horror and revulsion at hearing these dirtbags talking about tampering with it.