I will be looking at what Barthes and Foucault had to say about authorship and readership.  I will then evaluate within the context of the marriage and the 14th Amendment. The Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses in Section 1 have been interpreted differently throughout time. They read, “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.” How is original intent applied to what is supposed to be a living document? How is legal text evaluated differently as society progresses.

The 14th amendment was established in 1868. Before Loving v. Virginia legalized interracial marriage, conviction of interracial sex as a felony did not violate the 14^th Amendment. Courts did not see it as a violation of equal protection because both whites and non-whites were prosecuted equally for the charges. In 1967, the Warren Court found Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law unconstitutional because it violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Today, these clauses are being evaluated with regards to same-sex marriage. When Hollingsworth v. Perry went in front of the Ninth Circuit District Court, Judge Walker ruled that the ban of same-sex marriage violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case has been in front of the Supreme Court, and a decision is expected this summer. How will the Roberts Court read and apply the 14th Amendment?