From News Blaze:
According to a Baptist Minister, the U.S. Constitution prevents Hillary Rodham Clinton – or any woman – from serving as President. He says that contrary to what feminists think, the 19th Amendment did not de-gender the nation’s highest office. Article II, Section 1 declares 16 times the President will be a man.
That’s right, men only. Women need not apply.
Sexist? Maybe, but that’s the law of the land. Don’t think it’s right? Then change it with a constitutional amendment. Until then, the U.S. Constitution bars women from the Oval Office.
Reverend Rusty Weller, a baptist minister is conducting a petition drive to ban Hillary Clinton and all other women from gaining ballot access for the top of the ticket.
Rev. Rusty is conducting a national Talk Show tour, where he explains that the 19th Amendment merely grants women the right to vote and he quotes chapter and verse: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” Nothing in the 19th Amendment neutralizes the gender-specific qualifications for President, so much work must be done before Mrs. Clinton or any woman can constitutionally serve in that role.
Rev. Weller says “Most constitutional scholars agree our Founding Fathers specifically wrote into the Constitution a male-gendered office called President. Article II, Section 1 begins: ‘The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years …’.”
[…]
Said Rev. Weller, “The Constitution does not specify gender in its description of a Congressman. It’s not a qualification for Senator, according to Article I, Section 2: ‘The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State chosen by the legislature thereof. … No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.’”.
“Yet four times in Article I, Section 7 the President is referred to specifically as a man. Twenty times in all the President’s gender is mentioned as male,” Weller continued, adding, “The Constitution thus clearly states the President must be a man. That bars women from becoming the President of the United States without our nation first enacting a constitutional amendment.
“I personally have no objection to a qualified woman campaigning for and being elected President. But the Constitution must be honored and followed as written. It can be changed, if the public wants, through an established process.
“Let’s raise this issue now. America needs to know the facts before campaign signs begin popping into view.”
Rev. Weller, 59, pastored three Southern Baptist churches before becoming an “Internet missionary” and serving as editorial director of both ConservativePetitions.com and ChristianPetitions.com the past three years. Rusty, who lives in the Dallas area with his wife of 35 years, Ellen, had a successful sports writing career out of the University of Oklahoma before moving to the corporate world as a message strategist for two “Fortune 500” companies.
[…]
Rev, Rusty can be contacted at SpecialGuests.com.
Well, I’ll give the Reverend Rusty this much: he sure is a strict constructionist to beat all strict constructionists!
But the gender exclusion argument seems to me a bit, well, dubious—even from a technical legal standpoint—particularly when the phrase “all men are created equal” has been taken by the court to mean all “persons,” a fact of precedence that would seem to take a bit of the starch out of the good Rev’s case. That, and the fact that women were not permitted to run under Article I, Sec 2 until the 19th Amendment gave them the franchise and full personhood makes the distinction between the language in the two sections moot. Presumably, even under Article I, Sec 2, as originally conceived, the “persons” mentioned were necessarily men—and remained that way until the passage of the 19th Amendment. (A similar argument can be made for the 14th and 15th Amendments taken together—section 1 of the 15th noting that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude”; and to me, “condition of previous servitude” being excluded here suggests that full citizenship has been obtained officially and constitutionally—and so provided all other conditions for President are met, a candidate’s sex is irrelevant.)
But hell—if it weren’t for certain British scientists asking ‘what is this mold?,” we would not today have penicillin, yes? So make the case, Reverend Rusty!
Of course, I could be wrong about all this. In which case, this might be more interesting than I’m allowing for.
(h/t Allah)
“Internet missionary”? Sounds like something that gets blocked by parental guidance filters on your PC.
I’ll give the Reverend this much – he makes me glad I gave up being a lawyer… arguments like his are why every Army Field Manual carries the little statement that use of the word “he” denotes both male and female, and should not be seen as limiting to males only, unless specifically indicated.
Bah.
Hey, if “man” means “male or female person” in the constitution, how come the language Nazis force us to say “chairperson” and “crewed space missions” instead of “chairman” and “manned missions”? Help, they’re being illogical! They’re undermining their insistence that the usage of “man” before the splendid liberation that occurred around 1970, when strong women finally came of age, women who, unlike their weak and stupid sisters of the past, could actually throw off the yoke of male oppression, was evidence of the historical oppression of women.
Clearly, all good feminists must insist that “man” in the Constitution means “male” and an amendment is necessary before Laura can take over from W.
I get the feeling the starch went out of Rev. Rusty somewhere’s…and it wasn’t his argument.
English has no genderless pronouns. And the founders were not language-challenged twits who felt the need to be “inclusive” by writing “he/she/it” when “he” was sufficient to get the point across.
Rev. Rusty needs to take remedial English.
English is a Germanic language, and “man,” in German, means “one.” (“Wie sagt man . . . ?” = “how does one say . . .?”)
This is just silly.
Robert, I must admit I admire the pure evil of your argument, without accepting it.
Nutty.
I’ll bet the Reverend Rusty doesn’t believe he has to pay income tax either. Oh wait, he’s a preacher, so that means he doesn’t pay taxes anyway. And he eats all the best pieces of fried chicken if he comes to Sunday dinner at your house. The bastage.
TW = number. As in I’ve thought that about preachers a number of times.
Which reminds me of the story about the young farm fellow who saw clouds spelling out PC and went to his church elders to see if that meant that he should “Preach Christ”. HOwsomever, the elders said that in their opinion it meant “Plow Corn” and he should return to the farm. The young felow allowed as how he was very disappointed as he “had the longest pecker in the neighborhood and a powerful craving for fried chicken”.
Real originalists object to the air force. By definition its a pre-9/11 mindset.
Yes, actus, but then again real originalists would be against the freeing of the slaves as well. It’s probably best for the rational to just ignore or perhaps mock them.
Originalists object to amendments? thats new.
Little quibble with you facts:
Jeanette Rankin became the first woman Congressman (oops, Congressperson) four years before the 19th Amendment.
Guess that rules out the ‘dillo as President anytime soon. Of course, the media would have a field day with his rap sheet anyway if he coulda run…
<objection to a qualified woman campaigning for and being elected President.”</blockquote>
Oh, sure, Reverend, you no objection. Sure.
I give the Rev some mad props for one thing, though: His marketing.
As actus proves every half hour or so, eventually you can sell anything because there’s always a buyer somewhere.
tw: The simple-minded.
Now, now, JeffS, don’t jump to conclusions. I’m an originalist, but actus is wrong (as usual). I don’t object to the Air Force—well, I do, but not on Constitutional grounds. I object to the Department of Defense. (The Constitution provides for a Navy, which is perpetual, and an Army, which must be re-funded every two years. Combining the two, and requiring that the Navy also be subjected to the two-year funding system, is unConstitutional.) This does not mean that I object to a vigorous and forceful national defense. Quite the contrary, in fact.
And anyway the Rev. Rusty, as a Baptist, is not an originalist, he’s a strict constructionist as all Baptists are supposed to be and Southern Baptists come closer to than average. As a Baptist preacher he has to be at least as skilled at extracting the desired meaning out of the words that actually exist as any Ivy League legal sophist. If a Baptist theologian tells you the words won’t twist that way, you ought to pay attention to the experts.
Regards,
Ric
Real originalists do not object to the Air Force. Real originalists object to the Key West Agreement.
He says that contrary to what feminists think, the 19th Amendment did not de-gender the nation’s highest office. Article II, Section 1 declares 16 times the President will be a man.
Has Reverend Rusty proved that Hillary is not a man? She’s got balls bigger than her/his husband’s on most days!
W.E.B. Griffin objects to the Key West Agreement.
Ergo, W.E.B. griffin is a strict originalist.
Congress can’t fund the navy for only 2 years at a time?
<object to amendments? thats new. </blockquote>
You forget your history man. The slaves were freed first by executive fiat. Delivered in fact by a gun-slinging cowboy with a tall hat. Later, we concluded with the niceties of amendments.
Did you forget?
We got a chimp for President now, how Constitutional is that?
How odd then that McLellan used to call the tall-hatted cowboy by nearly the same deragatory.
We have you surrounded you feckless twit. Or asshat if you prefer.
Interestingly (or not), the German word for maiden (madchen) is a neuter. Only the married versions (herr, frau) are sexed.
SB: stay
a little bit longer
Oh that’s what you were referencing.
I think the commerce power reaches slaves. Maybe even article II, in cases of war and rebellious territories. An originalist wouldn’t like those though.
PTIATOR
I call foul! You have to have, you know, a REASON for rejecting an entirely bulletproof and purely beneficent argument. You have heard of reasons, haven’t you?
I think, at the end of the day, as much as others may decry my words, that if you can’t break the rules to free some slaves, or Europe, or perhaps some country/group of humans to be named later, then you might as well pack it all in and call it a day, because what you have isn’t worth a crap.
I think we are currently batting around .500 in this regard.
Article II is the authority he used. The Emancipation Proclammation did not free the slaves in the border states, which had remained in the Union. Lincoln did not have the authority to free them, only in the states under rebellion.
The commerce clause would not apply since it gives Congress the power to regulate trade, not the president. Also, it had not been given so broad an interpretation at that time that it could be used to outlaw slavery within a state. Only the state legislatures could do that.
Lincoln stretched a lot of rules, but he wasn’t a king and there was plenty of opposition to the war and to his presidency in the North. He couldn’t act like a dictator without risking a civil war in the North also. As far as parallels between the civil war and the current war, I’ve found that to be pretty fertile ground.
actus-
Dude!
Real originalists object to a ‘standing Army’…
t/w:wish as in “Don’t I wish…”
Ardsgaine
We try very hard to hold close to the ideals that molded us, but the American executive has often not had a problem ensuring that the best interests of her people are ensured, to the detriment of the letter of the law.
I don’t recommend that we give up the ghost to a benevolant dictator, just that we understand the nature of our history thusfar.
We are no stranger to ironic contradictions.
– Defense – Thats pefectly understandable because events on the ground, and an enemy(s) always seeking to exploit our freedoms which they see as a weakness, puts us in a conflict from time to time, but like Indianna Jones we’ll play the game to just so much, and then we just shoot the fucker.
– That and we’re all a lot crazier than our foes give us credit for….
From personal experience, I am not surprised in the least the hear this from a Baptist Preacher. They need to go out of style, soon.
Well, all I can say is I’m an original liberated female who will never vote for a feminist no matter what Her religious Sisterhood demands of me.
The Real JeffS  To be fair, the Key West Agreement fucked up air-to-ground support for the troops for decades. Hogs and Harriers really belong more to the guys who need them on call, like Apaches and Cobras.
This guy’s an idiot – Art II, Section 1, paragraph 5:
“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution [an exception for Alexander Hamilton], shall be eligible to the Offic of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained the Age of thrity five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
Emphasis mine. You find the same thing in the 12th and 22nd Amendments – they refers to President and person. That is the whole of the requirement to hold the office of president (along with disqualifying former two term presidents from being vice-president in the 22nd). Heck even when discussing Harry Truman, specifically, it says “person” – “this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress…”
Secondly, if I remember correctly, who could run for Congress was left to the States (see Article 1, Section 1), originally (again, if memory serves), New Jersey allowed married women to vote for about a decade after the adoption of the Constitution (single women and widows who owned land generally were allowed to vote in most states) – the standard was generally real property ownership. I’d suggest checking out a book called Vindicating the Founders…
Oh, isn’t that too bad? KG has forgotten “in pari materia”. The sex of the “person” is defined by the most restrictive descriptor. Which is, “man”. Or are we not assuming that the constitution is strictly construed? If not, I suppose “right to keep and bear arms” could mean “right to be prevented from keeping and bearing arms” and “freedom from unreasonable search and seizure” could mean “I can kill my baby any time I want”. Unless someone can show that the Founders, when they said, “man” meant “man or woman” – and if they did an entire superstructure of linguistic tyranny comes crashing down – an amendment is required.
Robert
Which is fine when talking about a language that has sexless pronouns, but in this case the male does stand for both sexes unless it is specified gender-specific. It would have stayed that way if it wasn’t for those meddling kids and that damn dog too!
Which is why there was no need to change it when it was tried.
Not only is this guy an idiot, he isn’t even consistent in his idiocy:
<blockquote>Said Rev. Weller, “The Constitution does not specify gender in its description of a Congressman. It’s not a qualification for Senator, according to Article I, Section 2: ‘The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State chosen by the legislature thereof. … No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State for which <b>he</b> shall be chosen.’”
[Emphasis added.]</blockquote>
Weller’s position seems to be that the same pronoun he is gender-specific when applied to the Presidency, but gender-neutral when applied to anyone else.
Several people (KG said it well) point out that the Constitution and later amendments say ‘person’ not ‘man’.
Amendment 12 is very clear. And over a century later Congress again said ‘person’ in #22.
The problem lies not in the stars but in english pronouns. They don’t handle gender well. But don’t jump from there to a conclusion that the English language does not handle gender well.
The pronoun is one of the words but the language is both words AND rules for using the words. And the rule is to use he when it could be either sex.
i.e. in the future as the Constitution considers. or when there is no information as in ‘someone stole the coins, he probably needed money’
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