The First and Tenth Amendments Are Under Attack

The U.S. Supreme Court has taken two cases under review, and now we wait to see how it will rule. Both cases in the Court are attacks on your rights, and both seek to restrict what you can do in a free country. There is a similarity between these two cases because they both deal with the federal government interfering with things you can do under freedom of choice. One of the two cases has seen many more headlines, while the other not so many.

The first case deals with the First Amendment, while the second deals with the Tenth Amendment.

Case one involves a baker who refused on religious grounds to make a custom wedding cake for a gay couple.

He wrote in USA Today on December 4, “What I didn’t say was that I wouldn’t sell them a cake.” He would not sell them a custom designed cake for their wedding.

We have two factions here in which one side says they have the right to religious freedom and the government cannot force them to do something against what they believe. On the other hand, the gay community feels that the courts have the power to compel the baker to do what they want, not what he wants. The problem I have is whether they singled him out, above all other bakers, just to make their case. Was he chosen because they knew of his religious beliefs? They might have a case if he was the only baker in the town, but he wasn't.

The second case before the high court deals with the right of the federal government to tell the states that the central government has the power to regulate various forms of legal gambling in each of the states.

This case involves a casino operator who wants to stop online gaming because he believes that his business will be in financial trouble if online gambling is allowed to grow. The issue is between state governments’ right to regulate gambling as they do now and have since the beginning of legalized gaming. Or do the feds have a say on what is legal and what is illegal in the states?

Another reason to drain the swamp is that two members of the Senate, Dianne Feinstein of California and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, are lobbying the Justice Department to use the Wire Act to control and eliminate online gaming. The casino's operators want to eliminate or greatly restrict online gambling. These two swamp creatures think that they know what is best and the federal government should step in and take control away from the states.

For those of you who don’t know, the Wire Act was put into law in 1961 to try and thwart illegal wagering. The Wire Act was part of eight bills that made up the Interstate Anti-Crime Acts signed by President Kennedy. If you think about it, the Internet did not exist in 1961, so what these two senators who are supporting the casinos are trying to do is put a round peg in a square hole. The Wire Act is no longer valid and instead of slicing and dicing, it needs to be replaced. The casinos have chosen to go to the Justice Department instead of the full Congress because I believe they think the Congress will not support what they want to do.

In the Constitution, Article Ten states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The states have been in charge of regulating legalized gaming from the beginning. They have the enforcement and oversight as to how these legal places of gaming operate. Look at pending legislation in New Jersey to see how a state is controlling online gambling. House Bill A4255 will allow online gambling at New Jersey racetracks, as long as they are affiliated with Atlantic City casinos. This is a desperate move by the Atlantic City casino operators to control online gambling, but in this case, the state is making the rules, not Washington.

The people who are pushing these two senators to pressure the Justice Department are now facing a review by the Supreme Court. In the end the right to gamble, and in doing so when, where, and how one wants will be established. If the states have been setting the rules as to how gambling will take place, then the central government has no role.

I hope that the court will rule in favor of the people and restore reason.

Dan Perkins is an author of both thrillers and children’s books. He appears on over 1,100 radio stations. Mr. Perkins appears regularly on international TV talk shows, he is current events commentator for seven blogs, and a philanthropist with his foundation for American veterans, Songs and Stories for Soldiers, Inc. More information about him, his writings, and other works are available on his website, DanPerkins.guru. To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.