Thinking of ‘I do’ and more engagement with First Amendment after raid of Kansas paper | Opinion

I am not fond of weddings. The forced polite small talk, the strained smiles, and the cruel heat with humidity at an outdoor wedding during the hottest summer on record as orchestrated by some sadistic wedding planner who must be immune to such elements because they live in Hell — Lord, is there anything worse? Well, there could be no fan in sight...

My lack of fondness for weddings might be the understatement of the year. However, I certainly enjoy sharing the pageantry in celebrating two people in love as they ‘ordain and establish’ their nuptials. With a heat and fury that may only match the outdoor temperature, I could not help but fixate upon this simple phrase that should sound familiar to any good Constitutionalist and the raid against the office of the Marion County Record in rural Kansas by local police.

The day after the raids, 98-year-old co-owner of the paper, Joan Meyer, collapsed and died, reportedly after having her home ransacked.

Recent footage released by the newspaper in Marion County shows the police seizing computers, servers, and mobile devices from those affiliated with the newspaper. The unprecedented shot against the First Amendment is almost unheard of in the United States.

The story about the Marion County papers is not only a shot against our First Amendment — it also is a shot against the simple words placed in the document’s most prominent location, the Preamble, laying the foundation for all that followed in the covenant made by our founders and ordained by our Creator:

‘We the People of the United States...do ordain and establish this Constitution...’

While sweating in Hell, I mean a dear friend’s wedding (love you...congrats), I started thinking about the meaning of these words, their constitutional impact, and the Marion newspaper. By enacting this phrase, ordinary citizens would govern themselves across a continent and over the centuries.

Professor Akhil Amar, one of my favorite constitutional scholars at Yale University, said with “the phrases ‘I do’ in an exchange of wedding vows and ‘I accept’ in a contract, the Preamble’s words performed the very thing they described.”

Ordain and establish are words that did more than promise popular self-government. They also embodied and enacted it. The Founders’ use of ‘establish and ordain’ within the Constitution was not merely a text but a deed- a constitution. We, the People, do ordain and in 1789 the most democratic deed the world had ever seen said, ‘Let there be light.’

By uniting previously independent states into a vast and indivisible nation, New World republicans would keep Old World monarchs at a distance. Our Founders, including those who held accountable our country’s promise for freedom, made our democracy work on a scale never before dreamed by invoking the covenant ordained by God and establishing our country’s promise that united our nation’s States.

Nonetheless, the declaration doesn’t come without an inalienable truth: the words are meaningless if the deed does not back the Constitution. Our Constitution, laws, rules, and spirit of Government are meaningless without the people and those serving to defend with established deeds the very words we all ordained.

The Constitution should only withstand if we are never complacent to rights and standing on principle. We need not agree, but we must always ensure the ability to agree and disgree — either in speech or press — must always remain defended. Without a doubt, this fact is an inalienable truth.

The First Amendment is a reflection of those principles that are established and ordained within the soul of our nation. From Kentucky to Kansas, we see a revival flourishing of that promise made 234 years ago to establish and ordain freedom in the United States.

We all should be proud to be Americans, celebrating that our Constitution and First Amendment are avenged by this Kansas paper continuing to print and live on.

Michael Frazier is a Powell County native, a National Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award Recipient, and a lobbyist in Frankfort.

This story was originally published August 24, 2023 at 11:17 AM.