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Minority Rights In America

1008 Words5 Pages

Brooke Teferra
October 27, 2015
AP Government – 5R
Quarter 1 Essay – Statement One
A representative democracy is often characterized by the phrase, majority rule with minority rights. Throughout the history of this country the U.S. Constitution and by extension the U.S. government has been unsuccessful at keeping the majority from abusing the rights of the minority in many cases; one of the most widespread examples is the abuse of the rights African Americans, another more recent example being the abuse of rights of gay Americans. But these are not the only times the Constitution has failed at protecting citizens’ rights, the trials faced by Japanese American citizens during World War II are prime evidence for the abuse of minority rights. …show more content…

In 1996 President Clinton passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which cited marriage as between one man and one women, and gave the federal government the ability not to recognize gay marriages, thereby violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment that guaranteed equal protection/treatment under the law to all citizens (citizens are citizens, regardless of their sexuality). Though the Supreme Court never upheld DOMA it did take 17 years until they began to deal with the unconstitutionality of it (Barnes). And gay couples did not actually gain the right to marry until June of this year (Vogue). This showed overt failings on the part of the executive and legislative branches; who following the opinion of the majority of the country at the time and took it upon themselves to restrict the rights of a specific sect of the population. And the Constitution created no explicit ways of dealing with cases like this, though the Supreme Court did establish judicial review, it still leaves violations like this in the hands of court cases that have to go through years of trials to get to the Supreme Court where they may not even be struck …show more content…

Most often it’s evidenced by the Supreme Court, a branch that should be apolitical, being heavily swayed by politics and upholding Unconstitutional laws and actions, through judicial review. Considering that the Constitution was built to create a limited government that would not be able to violate civil liberties, by framers that were extremely wary of big government, its failures are even

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