What the Constitution Means to Me

Content Warning: This guide includes discussions about domestic violence, violence/rape against women, incestuous rape, child abuse, human trafficking, and abortion.

Heidi Schreck, dressed in a blazer, tells the audience that she paid for college by winning American Legion speech and debate competitions at age 15, urged by her mother, a debate coach. In these contests, she argued about the US Constitution, which she loved fervently. Now, in her mid-forties, her award-winning speech lost to time, she wants to understand why she loved it so much. The set is an exaggerated recreation of an American Legion Hall from Heidi’s memory. Debaters were expected to connect personally with the Constitution, which made Heidi uncomfortable, unlike her frequent nemesis, Becky Lee Dobbler, who likened the Constitution to a patchwork quilt. As her teenaged self, she remembers the Legionnaires as old white men smoking cigars. One Legionnaire enters to moderate the competition, asking audiences to avoid applauding, because that can influence the judges. Heidi compares the Constitution to a crucible, or a witch’s cauldron, which is “warm-blooded, steamy” (16), and alive. The founders performed a spell and created a living document that would grow and adapt as society changed.

Heidi concludes this section of the debate by discussing the 9th amendment, which states that the Constitution cannot be used to deny or exclude rights just because they aren’t explicitly articulated. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas compares the amendment to a penumbra, which is the space between light and dark, or as Heidi explains, the space “between what we can see, and what we can’t” (18), allowing the Constitution to be relevant in a changing country. The bell rings, and the next section requires extemporaneous argument about an amendment drawn at random. Heidi’s pulls section one of Amendment 14, which promises “equal protection of the laws” (21), and that no state laws can supersede that right. Launching into her one-minute overview, Heidi states that after the 13th amendment abolished slavery, the 14th was added to protect the voting rights of formerly enslaved individuals to vote. Compelling states to honor this amendment was a significant part of the civil rights movement. Heidi notes that only men had voting rights, but the Legionnaire reminds her to stay on topic.

Heidi then has one minute to address each of the four clauses. The first grants citizenship to anyone born on US soil, correcting an earlier decision that determined that anyone of African descent could never be a citizen. However, it neglects to outline the naturalization process for immigrants, leaving those decisions to often-bigoted lawmakers. Quickly, Heidi draws a personal connection to her great-great-grandmother Theresa, who immigrated as a mail-order bride but died at 36 in a psychiatric hospital before ever becoming a citizen. The second clause, which protects a citizen’s rights to travel, buy property, or “pursue happiness” (25) in any state, brings Heidi immediately to her great-great-grandmother, who was essentially trafficked to Seattle over state lines, to address a massive shortage of marriageable women, under the lie of a better, more independent life. The reality was brutal, rampant domestic violence and murder of women. The third clause prohibits the government from “depriv[ing] any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of the law” (28), which Heidi cheerfully explains was used to lay the groundwork for Roe v. Wade. Although it might be controversial, 15-year-old Heidi states that she is pro-choice, even if she would never choose an abortion herself.

To the audience, adult Heidi admits that this stance was complicated when she became pregnant at 21. Terrified of small-town gossip reaching her parents, Heidi received her positive test results at what turned out to be an anti-abortion clinic. Getting an abortion required the interstate travel that is protected in the 14th Amendment, as the closest clinic was three hours away. Although Heidi knew that abortion wasn’t shameful, and her mother was a feminist, Heidi felt unable to tell her. She only told Jean, the man who impregnated her, who offered to drive her to the clinic. Heidi notes that she had been on birth control at the time, having gotten a prescription at 15 to be prepared just in case. She didn’t realize then how recently birth control had become available to all women regardless of marital status, or how Douglas had created the penumbra metaphor to argue it. There wouldn’t be a woman on the Supreme Court until 1981, which meant that in 1965, decisions about women’s bodies were made by nine men. Heidi plays clips of some of the arguments these men made in which they stammer with embarrassment at the topic.

Heidi remembers how her mother had seen her vomiting and become frantic at the idea that Heidi could be pregnant. Heidi, who thought her feminist mother would support her, lost her nerve and insisted that she wasn’t. Heidi moves on to clause four: “No State shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law” (36), which teenaged Heidi calls “miraculous” (36), protecting everyone, not just citizens. Embodying her adult self, Heidi adds that although the clause has been used to win many rights, the enormously disproportionate rates of gendered violence against women demonstrate that there is not equality. Her mother, grandmother, and likely great-great-grandmother suffered domestic abuse. Heidi describes how her grandmother’s first husband died, leaving Betty with three children. She remarried to a man who abused her and her three kids as well as the three kids that they had together, including raping and twice impregnating Heidi’s teenaged aunt. Heidi interjects that all six siblings grew up to be good people and lead happy lives, to ease the minds of the audience.

Learning about this abuse as a teen made Heidi angry. As a “deeply heterosexual” (40) girl, it dismayed her to hear about how violent men could be. She loved her grandmother dearly, but she also blamed Grandma Betty, a strong, tall, muscular woman, for not taking her children and leaving, and her father tried to explain the psychology of abuse. Heidi and Jean visited Grandma Betty on the way to the abortion. Heidi wanted to tell her about the abortion, certain that she would be glad to know that her granddaughter has options that she never had. Instead, Heidi blurted that she missed George, the sock monkey that Betty had made for her when Heidi was three, which Heidi had loved until it fell apart. Grandma Betty seemed unimpressed, but for Christmas, she mailed Heidi a new sock monkey. Thrilled, Heidi named him George the Second and eventually bought another monkey that she called George the Second’s Friend. Heidi adds that this may sound like a tangent, but “there are no tangents in this show” and it’s “quite carefully constructed” (42).

Heidi tells the audience about the case of Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005). Jessica Gonzales (now Lenahan) was granted a permanent restraining order against her abusive husband. When her ex-husband kidnapped their three daughters, the police refused to help. Her ex-husband murdered the three girls. Lenahan sued the police for failing to enforce the restraining order and protect her and her children. The case reached the Supreme Court, which, under Antonin Scalia, ruled that the police were not constitutionally compelled to provide protection. The decision hinged, not on Lenahan’s loss, but on the definition of the word “shall” (43), which Scalia argued “did not mean ‘must’” (44). This interpretation of the 14th amendment created a devastating precedent for women, BIPOC, LGBTQ, people with disabilities, Indigenous people, and immigrants, as it allows the police to choose whether to intervene and help people, which is especially detrimental to marginalized people who are already underserved or treated badly by police.

To make sense of this, Heidi explains the difference between negative and positive rights. Negative rights are based on what the government can’t do or take away, such as the right to free speech or to bear arms. Positive rights are those that require the government to provide or offer something. It was determined that Lenahan had no positive right to police protection. The US Constitution is largely about negative rights. Had the Equal Rights Amendment passed, it would likely have protected Lenahan. Heidi cites statistics for the enormously disproportionate number of women who have been murdered by male domestic partners, noting it’s something one can always feel, “the truth of that underneath everything” (46). Once in college, a man she just met had kissed her. Heidi had felt an inexplicable obligation to sleep with him as an act of self-preservation, even though she didn’t fear this boy in any logical way. At Heidi’s request, the Legionnaire reads the Hammurabi notecards, which is a list of laws beginning in 1800 BCE that explicitly granted men the right to abuse their wives.

Heidi explains that the earlier ratio of men to women in Seattle was erroneous, omitting Indigenous women, who were equal in their tribes and often married white settlers. After Washington achieved statehood, their status as human was revoked by the Constitution, annulling those marriages and leading to the importation of white women such as Heidi’s great-great-grandmother. The Legionnaire finishes his list of anti-woman laws, and Heidi introduces the Legionnaire as Mike Iveson, an actor and friend who Heidi felt brought “some positive male energy” (49) onstage to temper the emphasis on abusive men. Mike removes his costume and talks about Mel Yonkin, the basis for his character. Mel was a Legionnaire who traveled with Heidi and her mother to debate contests. Mel was kind to her and would become teary-eyed with pride while watching Heidi compete.

Mike muses about “positive male energy” (49) as he feels more gender-neutral than masculine. Growing up gay and closeted, Mike felt obligated to put on masculinity. Once, a stranger punched him for his feminine clothes, and he began dressing generically masculine. Once, when he was presumed straight at a bar, he remained ambiguous instead of clarifying, wondering if that experience was similar to Heidi’s sleeping with a man out of politeness. Heidi announces that they’re no longer in the debate hall, although there is no scene change. She describes how her teenaged mother and aunt had been the ones to report their stepfather’s abuse, as Grandma Betty had been too afraid. When Betty’s husband had threatened to murder them all—with his “constitutionally protected gun” (53)—this gave Betty the push to take her kids and escape. Fortunately for Heidi’s family, the police had decided to show up. Heidi’s mother and aunt had also been brave enough to testify, while Betty was too scared.

Heidi comments that younger generations always seems braver than the last. She sees the current youth, “shining a light backwards into the darkness so [we] can follow [them] into the future” (53). Heidi adored her grandmother but struggles to forgive her for not protecting her mother, unable to reconcile that scared woman with the grandma she loves. However, she has come to realize that “many of us are forced to be two people in this culture” (54). A younger feminist taught Heidi about “covert resistance” (54), in which disempowered people react to violence with passivity and politeness to stay alive. This is especially true of someone who can’t count on the police to help her if she calls. It means faking compliance while secretly stashing money for an escape, or making sure her children succeed in school and have options. Statistically, a woman and her children are in the most severe danger while they are trying to leave. After Betty’s death, her grandchildren found $30,000 squirreled under her mattress.

Once, Heidi forgot her sock monkey on a plane. Frantic, she claimed that it was her sick child’s favorite toy, which made workers leap to assist. Reunited, Heidi sobbed with relief and is still unsure why she was so upset. Heidi’s mother described progress as a woman and her dog running on the beach. The dog runs ahead and back, seemingly undoing and redoing progress, but the woman keeps moving forward. Recently learning of Heidi’s abortion, her mother was surprisingly calm, noting that it’s because she knows that Heidi is fine. Heidi considers her mother’s dual nature: one a feminist who ensured Heidi’s future and education, and the other terrified that Heidi could, like her, suffer abuse. Heidi decides that instead of a crucible, the Constitution is a mother obligated to protect her child. Positive-rights constitutions aren’t uncommon, but Heidi wonders at the efficacy of reconceiving the Constitution in positive terms if it still relies on the interpretation of primarily white men. Heidi plays a recording of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, whose response to the question of how many women is enough on the Supreme Court was: “When there are nine” (58).