Mostly just background:

The Weimar Constitution adopted by Germany after the first "Great War to End All Wars" was, and is, considered a "model Constitution." Many, at the time of its adoption, considered it superior even to the US one, although there were a few complaints even then, and history has shown some additional ones.

For those interested,

Selected Articles from the Weimar Constitution is one professor's extraction and summation of key articles.

Weimar Constitution is an apparently complete version, with a few footnotes at the end that may be helpful.

What many see as the cause of its fall was the provision for the assumption of emergency powers by the government in "times of great danger." The provision reportedly was included largely because of the fear of communism. (I'll not mention "Patriot Act" here.)

Historians frequently point to The Nuremberg Laws on Citizenship and Race: September 15, 1935 as a key action in the rise of the Natzi regime. While it is important to know quite a lot of other history to make much sense of how this happened, it does fit into the context of what some people are concerned might happen here, in the US, and those who haven't read it recently might want to take a look – or not.

Note that the above is a separate and distinct action from the simultaneous Nuremberg Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, September 15, 1935

From the "Blood and Honor" law:

Article 1.
1) Marriages between Jews and subjects of the state of German or related blood are forbidden. Marriages nevertheless concluded are invalid, even if concluded abroad to circumvent this law.

From the recently passed Kansas Constitutional Amendment:

''§ 16. Marriage. (a) The marriage contract is to be considered in law as a civil contract. Marriage shall be constituted by one man and one woman only. All other marriages are declared to be contrary to the public policy of this state and are void.
''(b) No relationship, other than a marriage, shall be recognized by the state as entitling the parties to the rights or incidents of marriage.''

Note that those pushing the Kansas amendment stressed the importance of part (b) to prevent being forced to recognize a marriage legal elsewhere, if it would not be legal in Kansas under this law. This provision has already been ruled unconstitutional in a couple of other states, but those pushing this kind of law (apparently) simply don't care about the Constitution or don't understand it.

It should also be noted that the Weimar Constitution specifically permits:

Article 10
The Reich may, via legislation, establish principles for:
1. the rights and obligations of religious communities

The US Constitution, on the other hand, includes:

Amendment 1 (Ratified December 15, 1791)
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Inclusion of part (b) of the Kansas ammendment recreates the situation for another "Dred Scott" trial in the Supreme Court, and it is quite probably a deliberate attempt to do so. The popular conception, among those in this movement is that Dred Scott was an example of a case in which the "activist Court" made a "bad activist decision" and changed the law. In fact, the Court ruled according to the law in existence and the decision had horrific results simply because the Court was NOT "activist" and did not – because there was no legal basis to do so – attempt to "write new law."

Every case I have attempted to look at, in which the claim that "activist judges" have "changed the law" are in fact cases in which legislators, and voters, have in fact violated the law, as it exists, and the Courts have interpreted the law as it is.. The Courts generally are prohibited from bringing "facts not argued" into a decision, and for the most part they have not. If there's "activisim" involved, it largely comes from the lawyers who argue the cases, and politicians who demand "the right decisions" to suit their personal agenda.

It is not at all difficult to find cases in which legislatures have enacted "illegal" laws. One trivial case is the Congressional approval of the NAFTA treaty allowing "free passage" of trucks with Mexican registry in the US. The free passage is not in question, but the "prohibition against ICC inspectors examining the truck/trailer registration," included in the treaty, means that a trailer stolen in the US and registered in Mexico (where proof of ownership is quite lax) cannot be recovered by the original US owner even if he finds it sitting at a truck stop in Los Angeles. He will be charged with theft if he tries to take it back. Informally, I've had indications from currently active drivers that more than half of the "Mexican" trailers operating in the western US still have the original US owners' tags on them and are presumedly stolen. One such was from a driver who named, and knows well, the driver who saw his own stolen trailer and was prevented by police and ICC from taking possission of it. I have no reason to disbelieve this specific account, although the numbers are subject to some exaggeration.

Guess which Dred Scott decision the treaty contravenes. (Dred Scott has not, so far as I know, been "overturned," although many of the laws cited in the decision have been changed.)

As noted, this is really background to the discussion at hand, but may help some to see why there is concern about the proposed changes. What I see as an essential and common factor in both the old German and recent US movements is that both define or attempt to define differences in the rights and privileges of "us" and "them."

John