Philadelphia Blog Post - Liana Wallace

Prompt 1

Andrew Beckett a lawyer at a highly acclaimed law firm who was abruptly fired after being promoted by the lead partners of the firm to a special account for not disclosing his conception of the deadly disease of AIDS is a violation of the 14th Amendment. This is a direct violation of the  14th Amendment because it denied Mr. Beckett “equal protection of the law”. Under law no citizen is obligated to share a sickness that they have at their place of work therefore Andrew Beckett having aids was his business and his business alone. Having this understanding under the 14th amendment the partners deciding to fire Mr.Beckett so soon after his promotion is either an act of prejudice against those people ill with aids or a lack of understanding of United States law which must be addressed and corrected under law.

Prompt #2

In the Obergefell v Hodges case, “14 same-sex couples and two men whose same-sex partners are deceased, filed suits in Federal District Courts in their home States, claiming that respondent state officials violate the Fourteenth Amendment by denying them the right to marry or to have marriages lawfully performed in another State given full recognition” (Obergefell v Hodges). In the Obergefell v. Hodges case the “Court ruled that under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees equal protection for all citizens, states must recognize same-sex marriage and can no longer prohibit gay and lesbian couples from getting married, or refuse to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in another state.”(Obergefell v Hodges). As a result of the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which protects, “fundamental rights” such as the right to marry including the protection of “individual rights from interference by the state's” same-sex couples gained the right to legally marry and have their matrimony be recognized as such across state borders (Chapman).