Civil Liberties

Civil liberties are the individual freedoms upon which governments in liberal democracies cannot legally intrude. The civil liberties of Americans are primarily found in the first ten amendments to the US Constitution, also called the Bill of Rights, which became law in 1791. Some of the civil liberties enjoyed by Americans include the right to privacy and the freedoms of religion, speech, the press, and assembly. Civil rights, meanwhile, refer specifically to laws that protect individuals from discrimination. For instance, the US Supreme Court has held that marriage is a civil liberty, but the guarantee that all people can marry without being discriminated against, including interracial couples (Loving v. Virginia, 1967) or lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people...