Churches can make their choices but the constitution doesn’t leave anyone a second-class citizen.

Justice Antonin Scalia, who relishes his role as a self-appointed judicial defender of bigotry, waved a white flag dissenting from one recent gay marriage decision. "In sum,” he said, “that Court which finds it so horrific that Congress irrationally and hatefully robbed same-sex couples of the 'personhood and dignity' which state legislatures conferred upon them, will of a certitude be similarly appalled by state legislatures' irrational and hateful failure to acknowledge that 'personhood and dignity' in the first place. As far as this Court is concerned, no one should be fooled; it is just a matter of listening and waiting for the other shoe."

Only a day apart, Scalia opined that the states could deny federal protection to prevent voter suppression while voting to deny states the right to legislate marriage equality. He reminds us of when one of President Nixon’s appointees to the Supreme Court was deemed “mediocre.” Nebraska Senator Roman Hruska famously said the mediocre “are entitled to a little representation, aren't they?”

Scalia would suggest that even the bigots “are entitled to a little representation, aren't they?”

Even Scalia recognizes these rulings were admonitory. States have been warned. Legislators can either do what the constitution requires or the courts will do it for them. The decisions were victories for state’s rights but ultimately, the high court sent a warning shot across their bow. If the states don’t do it, the federal courts will have no choice but to guarantee homosexuals equal protection under the law.

In the case determining the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to be nothing but a defense of bigotry, United States v. Windsor, the majority decided, “DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment.” Weighing Leviticus against the Constitutional guarantee of equality, five of the nine justices said the latter, “must at the very least mean that a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot justify disparate treatment of that group.”

Using that criterion, civil contracts are as unacceptable as the status quo. Civil contracts are to marriage equality what “separate but equal” was to the battle for the rights of African Americans. “Whites only” drinking fountains are no different than “heterosexual only” weddings. Churches can make their choices but the constitution doesn’t leave anyone a second-class citizen.

The case overturning the California ban on gay marriage sent the strongest signal of what lies ahead for politicians who read their Bible but not our Constitution. Justice Roberts said the proponents of California’s Proposition 8 had suffered only a “generalized grievance” when the ballot initiative they sponsored was struck down.

Those words, “generalized grievance,” relegated to the waste bin the arguments heard ad infinitum from opponents of equality. Those like state senator Leslie Nutting of Cheyenne, who claim the rights of same-sex couples somehow violates “the sanctity of marriage,” or WyWatch and state representative Lynn Hutchings’ claims that gay marriage threatens heterosexual marriage, that marriage is about the ability to reproduce, or the arguments that gay couples shouldn’t raise children…and other unsubstantiated claims…the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court said those arguments were all “generalized” grievances, not giving adherents the right to come into a court to challenge people seeking equal protection under the law.

Note to Nutting and Hutchings: Chief Justice Roberts wrote, in another case striking down a school integration program, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." Ergo, the way to stop discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is to stop discriminating on the basis of sexual discrimination.

The thud you heard when Justice Roberts finished speaking was indeed the other shoe dropping.

Wyoming legislators can choose between prejudice and the Constitution. Don’t hold your breath. Time and resources used to work for equal rights in the Equality State would be better spent taking the case to the federal court.

The time has come and even Justice Scalia knows it.

Pro-choice? You should vote for Constitutional Amendment A.

Remember the canticle to the unintended consequences of Jed’s squirrel hunt.

“Come and listen to a story about a man named Jed

A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,

Then one day he was shootin’ at some food,

And up through the ground came a bubblin’ crude.”

Reviewing the ballot and reading Constitutional Amendment A, I started humming those lyrics. If enacted, it will write protections for a woman’s right to choose an abortion into the Wyoming constitution.

A group of anti-Obama ideologues who thought they “was shootin” at Obamacare, hit “a bubblin’ crude…oil that is…Texas tea” for those who believe abortion is a health care decision that should be reserved to the woman involved. The sponsors hoped somehow that state law could trump the federal constitution. They were trying to negate Obamacare, but the U.S. Supreme Court has already upheld the act. Therefore, the anti-Obamacare provisions of the proposal mean absolutely nothing.

But, the unintended consequences may shock the sponsors. Anti-choice legislators, whose disdain for Obamacare exceeded their ability to recognize the unintended consequences of their inability to think through an issue, proposed the constitutional amendment. Included among them was Laramie County state senator Leslie Nutting, known by some supporters as a “full-spectrum” conservative. Her legislation will most certainly enshrine a woman’s right to choose as a state constitutional guarantee.

Roe v. Wade was the Supreme Court decision holding that the U.S. Constitution protects the right of women to make healthcare choices consistent with with their own conscience. Legal scholars may find Constitutional Amendment A provides an even clearer protection for Wyoming women. Amendment A will prevent the legislature from imposing unreasonable restrictions on the right of a woman to choose.

Read it yourself. http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2011/ Introduced/SJ0002.pdf. Article 1, Section 38 entitled “Right of health care access” proposes: (a) “Each competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions.” Further the ballot proposition includes this explanation of legislative intent. “The adoption of this amendment will provide that the right to make health care decisions is reserved to the citizens of the state of Wyoming.” They could not have made it any clearer.

Constitutional Amendment A provides legislative authority to “determine reasonable and necessary restrictions” on the right to choose. However, the language of the proposition places strict limits on those restrictions. The legislature is prohibited from establishing any regulation on the right of anyone to “make his or her own health care decisions” unless those restrictions are “reasonable and necessary restrictions on health care consistent with the purposes of the Wyoming Constitution.” That would certainly not include invasive ultra-sounds, waiting periods or legislatively mandated medical advice.

Finally the constitutional amendment requires the state of Wyoming to protect the right to choose. The last paragraph “provides that this state shall act to preserve these rights from undue governmental infringement.” The attorney general is required to go to court and defend the right to choose from any right-to-life legislation lawmakers, (which would undoubtedly include the sponsors of this amendment) might want to enact.

Sponsors of Constitutional Amendment A never intended to give women the right to choose. The founding fathers never intended to protect pornography either but it’s our courts, not our legislators who interpret laws. A good bet is bright lawyers will argue persuasively the language enshrines the right to choose as a state constitutional right. Right-to-life advocates will make the argument that the legislature can still restrict abortion rights. But proposal’s own words say the primary purpose of the provision is to allow “each competent adult” to “have the right to make his or her own health care decisions.”

Who knows what the courts may do but language the legislature hastily adopted can clearly be read by reasonable people to give broader protection to the right to choose than Roe v. Wade gave under the United States Constitution.

Let’s vote for Constitutional Amendment A and watch what the courts do.