Gays and the U.S. Constitution - Part I
The U.S. Senate and the Electoral college in the enabling of anti-Gay politics.
Though it might seem like this essay is of no or extremely limited practical applicability to benefit the Gay community it is an important question to start thinking about. Sometimes questions and issues need to be considered in advance of when they arise. This is so when an opportunity arises or there is some development, we already know what our interests are and what we should do or support and be mobilized to act.
There is a growing awareness that the 18th century American constitution has problems and is ill-adapted to the 21st century, and there is awareness that the American constitution from the beginning had problems.
The Gay community hasn’t really considered whether the U.S. Constitution is good for Gay people or not. Likely the Gay Democrats and Gay Republicans would be horrified by the question being raised since they were fear the hostile reaction to that question by the Democratic Party and Republican Party respectively.
The present U.S. Constitution is not good for the Gay community and in this section, Part 1, I am going to consider the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College.
Gays are concentrated in cities. It is with a concentrated population that businesses and services directed towards Gays can be supported. It is with a concentrated population that Gays can form a community in which they can meet each other, have political and community organizations. Gays will for the foreseeable future be concentrated in cities. Not every Gay, but most Gays.
The U.S. Constitution has worked to under represent the states in which the major Gay communities exist and hence under represents Gays. The U.S. Constitution works to over represent rural areas which send to Congress anti-Gay representatives.
The U.S. Constitution constitutes an anti-democratic system which is injurious to Gays.
The states have widely varying populations, but regardless of their population they get two U.S. Senators in the U.S. Senate. The U.S. Senate votes on the Supreme Court nominees submitted to the U.S. Senate for their approval by the U.S. President.
The President is elected by the electoral college in which each state is allocated their votes based on the number of their U.S. Representatives and U.S. Senators it has.
From the 2020 U.S. Census the state of Wyoming has a population of 576,851 and has one U.S. Representative and two U.S. Senators and hence three electoral votes.
From the 2020 U.S. Census the state of California has a population of 39,538,223 and has two (2) U.S. Senators in the House and 53 U.S. House Representatives for a total of 55.
For Wyoming that is 3 electoral votes for 576,851 or 5.2 electoral votes/million. California has 1.39 electoral votes/million.
These states have twenty-four (24) U.S. Senators:
1. Wyoming 576,851
2. Alaska 643,077
3. North Dakota 779,094
4. South Dakota 886,667
5. Montana 1,084,225
6. Maine 1,362,359
7. West Virginia 1,793,716
8. Idaho 1,839,106
9. Nebraska 1,961,504
10. New Mexico 2,117,522
11. Mississippi 2,961,279
12. Arkansas 3,011,524
Yet their population only totals to 19,016,924 versus California’s 39,538,223. Of these 24 Senators, 20 of these Senators can be thought of as reliably anti-Gay Senators.
New York has 20,201,249, more that the total population of these twelve listed states.
The total 2020 census population of the U.S. is 331,449,281 and divided by 50 states, the average population of each state is 6,628,985. So, every, state with a population below that is over represented, and every state with a population more than that is under represented in the U.S. Senate and in the Electoral College.
Many of the cities that have major Gay urban populations are in states which are underrepresented. San Francisco and Los Angeles are in California. New York City is in New York. Chicago is in Illinois with 12.8 million. Miami is in Florida with 21.5 million. Atlanta is in Georgia with 10,711,908 million. Philadelphia is in Pennsylvania with 13,002,700.
In no case is a major concentration of Gays in a state that is over represented. Boston is in Massachusetts with 7,029,917.
Washington, D.C. has no representation in congress even though with 690,000 it has more people than Wyoming or Alaska.
Of course, there is Vermont, 643,077; Rhode Island, 1,097,379; Delaware, 989,948; and Connecticut, 3,605,944; which to a small extent balances a part of the bias in Senate representation for rural Anti-Gay states.
Wyoming is even over represented in the U.S. House, in that the 2020 Census population for the U.S. is 331,449,281 and divided by the 435 members of the U.S. House, 761,952 would be the representation of the house if evenly divided by the U.S. Population.
This over representation in the U.S. Senate and consequentially in the Electoral college has devastating effects on the Gay community.
In the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton polled several million more votes than Donald Trump, but he won because he had more electoral votes due to over representation in the U.S. Senate.
Likely few of the reactionary Supreme Court justices would have been approved if the U.S. Senate representation was based on population. We probably wouldn’t be worry about what U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said about overturning same-sex marriage and re-instating the laws against same-sex sex if the U.S. Senate had been based on population.
It shouldn’t be overlooked the systematic bias against urban populations of the U.S. Constitution when it doesn’t directly impact Gay rights. The bias in the U.S. Constitution will tend to result in urban areas being underserved and Gays live in the urban communities which are underserved.
There are possibilities of the 18th century U.S. Constitution coming to an end. As it continues to result in increasingly negative impacts to the national interest and people become aware how the U.S. Constitution is a problem as it negatively impacts the national interest it will have declining support.
Also, the heroic mythology of the origin of the U.S. Constitution continues to be discredited as historians start to point out the historical reality, that it was a document drawn up by slave holders to protect privileged classes.
One problem is that some still think the Constitution can be fixed by amendments. The fact is the small states aren’t going to give up their privileges and it takes three-quarters of the states to ratify an amendment. Small states aren’t going to dispossess themselves of power. The constitution specifically forbids Congress the ability to alter states such as to merge them or divide them, though West Virginia did come into existence against the Constitution in the revolutionary situation of the Civil War. The Constitution also forbids the altering of the states in a Constitutional Convention.
The Constitution has resulted in a reactionary Supreme Court pushing back on an increasingly secular and liberal nation.
A change in the Constitution is likely to be through a revolutionary process. At the time the Gay community needs to know where its interests lay and act accordingly.
The following are links to U.S. Census websites.
Dunno if you know this but one of Alaska's sitting senators -Lisa Murkowski- was one of the first Senators on either side to come out in support of gay marriage and she voted to repeal DADT. She was so popular that when the Republican party tried to get rid of her via primary she won via write-in and has been in her seat ever since (though she is currently on the ballot). Alaska's other senator also seems to be socially liberal and primarily concerned with maintaining pro-fossil fuel energy policies.
And just for fun; surely moving 1m gay men to Wyoming would result in a political situation where both parties would be forced to always keep in mind not making them mad.