Got it. I think for their time, they did incredibly well. Only a handful of amendments added over 200 years. Times change and there should always be room for any rulings to grow. Without a document how would the spirit of the law be enforced though? Why did Canada feel that this was necessary after such a long time?

>I know you didn't, Jay.
>What I was getting at was that the Constitution didn't prohibit, say, voting by women yet somehow it came to be so.
>Similarly you are seeing today that the Constitution does not prohibit marriage by gays, yet somehow it came to be.
>
>I was distraught myself when Canada "got" a Constitution in the mid-seventies, because now we became bound to the "letter of the law" whereas previously it wass the "spirit of the law" that essentially ruled.
>
>Using the "letter of the law", slavery or women voting or ??? are not expressly sanctioned, so they were subject to interpretation in favour of prohibiting those things. Using the "spirit of the law", which was what our judges did pre-Constitution, such arguments wouldn't hold up.
>
>I didn't mean to in any way infer anything about your "position" regarding gay marriage. (you read he letter of my message rather than the spirit < s >)