Like WaPo's Ezra Klein, HuffPo Writer Terkel Confused By Constitution

Think Progress shill Amanda Terkel is not very bright, and seems easily confused by the Constitution like a certain boy blogger we know who can't grasp the plain meaning of documents more than 100 years old (guess we can count out his review of The Mabinogi: A Book of Essays that I worked on as a grad assistant).

Terkel whines:

The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, according to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Someone should inform out dim liberal friend that, that isn't "according to" Scalia. That's "according" to a plain text reading of the Amendment itself.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

The only gender references in the document plainly refer to males... do we need to highlight that? Furthermore, this is a commonly understood reading of the document that is utterly uncontroversial. The single sex nature of the 14th Amendment is the reason that an Equal Rights Amendment creating a Constitutional basis for equality between the sexes has been proposed time and again since 1923.

As William Jacobson notes, Terkel and her liberal allies simply don't know the Constitution.

Perhaps the failures of the liberal education system in this country are at fault. Can you think of any other reason liberals consistently claim The Constitution says things, that it clearly does not?