That was my point. Those "rights" are made up out of whole cloth.
If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.
Posted on 10/24/2005 12:27:04 PM PDT by Hunterb
WASHINGTON – Was the U.S. Supreme Court fooled by a make-believe sodomy case in Lawrence v. Texas – one manufactured by homosexual activists to entrap police and ensnare the judicial system in a conspiracy to change the law of the land?
That is the compelling verdict of a new book, "Sex Appealed: Was the U.S. Supreme Court Fooled?" by Judge Janice Law.
It was in the Houston courthouse where Law presided as judge that she first heard rumors that the key figures in what became the landmark Lawrence v. Texas Supreme Court case actually invited arrest in a pre-arranged setup designed from the start to test the constitutionality of anti-sodomy laws. What the journalist-turned-prosecutor-turned-judge-turned-journalist found, after interviewing most of the key players, including those in the Texas homosexual subculture that produced the case, is that the Supreme Court, possibly for the first time in history, ruled on a case "with virtually no factual underpinnings."
When the Supreme Court decided to hear the challenge to Texas anti-sodomy laws in 2002, the only facts for the high court to review were Deputy Joseph Richard Quinn's 69-word, handwritten, probable cause affidavits – written within hours of the arrests of the three principals in the case Sept. 17, 1998.
There had been no trial. There had been no stipulations to facts by the state or the defendants. The defendants simply pleaded no contest at every phase of the proceedings. It was quite simply the misdemeanor dream case homosexual activists in Texas and nationwide had been dreaming about. Or had they done more than dream about it? Had they schemed about it, too?
Nearly everyone familiar with the case that set off the nation's same-sex marriage craze knows there were two defendants in the case – two men, John Geddes Lawrence, 60, and Tyron Garner, 36. Forgotten, until Law's book, was a third man arrested at Lawrence's apartment that night – Robert Eubanks, who was beaten to death three years before the case was heard by the Supreme Court.
It was Eubanks who took the fall for calling the police the night of the "incident." He said he was the one who placed the call reporting a man firing a gun in an apartment building. When police officers responded to the felony call, Eubanks was outside Lawrence's apartment directing police to the unit – still insisting a man with a gun was threatening neighbors.
When police approached Lawrence's apartment, they found the front door open. When they entered the apartment, they found a man calmly talking on the telephone in the kitchen, also motioning to the officers to a bedroom in the rear.
Despite repeated shouts by officers identifying themselves as of sheriff's deputies from the moment they entered the Houston apartment, no one seemed surprised to see them – especially not Lawrence and Garner.
The veteran police officers who entered the bedroom that night were unprepared for what they were about to see.
"You could tell me that something was happening like 'there's a guy walking down the street with his head in his hand,' and I would believe it," said Quinn, who had 13 years on the force the night he entered Lawrence's apartment. "As a police officer, I've seen things that aren't even imagined."
But what he saw that night shocked him, searing images into his mind that seem as vivid today as the day they happened.
Quinn and his fellow officers, expecting to see an armed man, perhaps holding a hostage or in a prone position ready to fire at them, instead, found was Lawrence having anal sex with Garner.
And they didn't stop – despite repeated warnings from officers.
"Lawrence and Garner did not seem at all surprised to see two uniformed sheriff's deputies with drawn guns walk into their bedroom," Quinn recalls.
Quinn shouted to them to stop. They continued.
"Most people, in situations like that, try to cover up, hide or look embarrassed," explained Quinn. "Lawrence and Garner didn't look at all surprised to see us. They just kept doing it."
Finally, Quinn took action. He told them: "I don't believe this! What are you doing? Did you not hear us announce ourselves? Don't you have the common decency to stop?" But still Lawrence and Garner did not stop until Quinn physically moved them apart.
Lawrence and Garner would be booked that night for a class C misdemeanor punishable by only a fine. Eubanks was charged with filing a false police report because there were no guns found. Lawrence and Garner would become celebrity heroes of the homosexual activist movement. Eubanks would wind up beaten to death – with Garner a possible suspect in a case that remains unsolved.
But who was the mystery man on the phone in the kitchen? He was never identified officially because there was no reason to charge him. Law believes his identity is key to proving the pre-meditated nature of the Lawrence case setup. And she thinks she's solved the case. Readers can be the judge.
The 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court Lawrence ruling favoring the defendants in the landmark case is the trigger event kicking away roadblocks to same-sex marriage, says Law.
The justices who voted to overturn the Texas statute and invalidate anti-sodomy laws in the rest of the U.S. were Justices Stephen Breyer, Sandra Day O'Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter and John Paul Stevens. Justice Kennedy wrote the majority decision.
Those voting to uphold the Texas law were Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
If the Lawrence case were known to be a setup during the five years following the arrests, then the defendants would not have a right-to-privacy claim, and the U.S. Supreme Court probably would never hear the case.
After that historic ruling, Law decided to investigate a case that had never before been subject to any investigation. By then she was a visiting judge, sitting for judges who are on vacation or ill.
"I researched and wrote 'Sex Appealed' because I know many of the Lawrence participants, I had the time, contacts, and the journalistic background to investigate, and, as a lawyer and judge, I felt an obligation to history to find out what really happened behind the scenes in one of the most culture-altering cases in America's legal history," Law said. "I am the judge who, after the internationally publicized case was concluded at the highest level, embarked on her own investigation of rumors about the case assigned to her Texas court."
Along the way, Law is not only persuasive that Lawrence was planned from the start – that police, in effect, were entrapped into witnessing a crime because the homosexual activists needed a test case – but also gets support for her theory from other judges involved in the saga.
What would it mean, two years after Lawrence v. Texas, if Supreme Court justices learned they had been fooled, manipulated, played like a radio?
Did the justices know that a key witness in the case had been murdered and that one of the defendants appeared to be a key suspect?
Were they aware one of the lawyers that handled the sodomy case for Lawrence and Garner also represented Garner in the unsolved murder death of Eubanks?
How could there be an issue of privacy in a case in which police were invited, encouraged, begged to enter an apartment and directed to the bedroom where the unlawful sexual activity was taking place?
Law also finds that homosexual activists nationwide and, specifically, in Houston were actively searching for that "perfect" test case when Lawrence happened to come along.
As the U.S. Supreme Court is being reshaped through the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor and the death of William Rehnquist, some are wondering if it's possible the court could "second-guess" itself in the Lawrence ruling – one that turned out to be among the most controversial decisions in years.
The only one lying is you. I have relatives in the medical industry who told me this. I find this quite trustworthy.
You on the other hand have an agenda to push tyranny disguised as rightiousness (which it is not).
Wrong, muslim countries are so uptight that they have rules on which hand you can eat with and which hand you can wipe your butt with.
A child is not an adult, cannot consent to sexual activity, cannot enter into contracts. A child cannot, by definition, be a consenting adult. That is a completely separate issue from the government staying out of the sex lives of consenting adults.
On the Ginsberg article, got a cite? I've seen how these things get oversimplified in the retelling.
At the time of Lawrence, I wrote that the Supreme Court should have remanded the case to a lower court, where the government would have to demonstrate--if it could--that the men were acting without any reasonable expectation of privacy. Had the Supreme Court done that, then any questions of 'staging' could have been laid to rest.
One principle that IMHO should be codified into law is that a person should not be punished(*) for an act which they believe, and a reasonable person would believe, was legal either de jure or de facto.
(*)Other than, in some cases, being ordered to pay non-punitive restitution
As a simple example, if cops are observed to routinely ignore motorists travelling 60mph on a particular stretch of road, such observation should be a defense for someone pulled over going 56mph unless that motorist should have had some reason to expect the more stringent enforcement.
I would expect that it would probably be possible to prove that many cops in Texas routinely ignore cases where they would have probable cause to suspect that homosexual sodomy is going on. Therefore, people in Texas could reasonably have believed that homosexual sodomy was de facto legal provided they were discrete about it. The question in Lawrence would then be one for the trial court to determine whether the defendants in Lawrence were acting with a reasonable expectation of privacy. If it were to turn out that they had placed the burglary call themselves, there would be no expectation of privacy and they could not avail themselves of the defense available to those who did not try to get caught.
Lawrence should have been remanded to the trial courts. Depending upon the facts of the case, the people might or might not have been convicted. IMHO, if the facts of the case would support a conviction under the standard the Supreme Court should have suggested, there would have been little outrage.
Basically, I believe there is a right to privacy with such things; the question at hand should be whether the defendants had a reasonable expectation of privacy. If, as has been suggested, the defendants were responsible for the burglary call, then that would mean they had no reasonable expectation of privacy and thus should be convicted.
Things might get more interesting if one of the defendants placed the burglary call without the knowledge of the other. In that case, the one who placed the call should be convicted and the other one not.
In what ways were the laws enforced? If two people were discrete about their relations but someone telegraphed in an anonymous tip, would the police break down their door to try to catch them? Or were the laws enforced only against people who flaunted their homosexuality?
My expectation would be that the latter would more likely be the case, and the latter is the type of enforcement I would like to see.
Actually, in that case it might be better if the government turned a blind eye--to what would follow (once I found out about it).
LoL...
What part of 12 year old don't you understand?
Amen to that!
I am talking about "two consenting adults" having sex, which is allowed under the law and most forms of common sense. Which is not something you are talking about.
If you look at my first reply, you'll see it is to your post #123
To opine that the court''didn't have to take the case'' is to restate the obvious and adds nothing.
What *I* want to know is....what in blazes are "Homosexual rights" and how are they different than "rights" retained by all citizens?!
In your post #123 you quoted Khepera as follows:
people voted to have sodomy laws in place. To have judges overrule the will of the people is tyranny.
You said:
"So if people voted to make being of white race illegal, your would support it. There is such a thing about 'mob rule'/ as in majority rule, which is why we have a Electorial College, to prevent 'mob rule'."
With that statment you made a false analogy (strawman argument), you placed sodomy (behavior) in the same catagory as race (ethnicity).
And I replied:
So sexual perversion (behavior) is equal to racial ethnicity is it? What a Strawman...
Race is who you are, homosexual is what you do.
That was my point. Those "rights" are made up out of whole cloth.
If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.