Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: The Red Zone
The proper question, of course, is what should and shouldn't laws seek to control. We probably do want laws against murder. We probably don't want laws against blasphemy. In the great between, lies the debate.

Your point here misses the real point, which is whether the Constitution PROHIBITS the passage of laws regulating sodomy. By your own logic, the normal legislative process, over time and controlled ultimately by the electorate as a whole, seeks to find that balancing point between individual rights and community interests. All Scalia is saying is that the Constitution does not provide a basis for the USSC to REMOVE that decision from the legislative arena as regards sodomy rights.

12 posted on 04/03/2003 3:44:45 AM PST by WL-law
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies ]


To: WL-law
All Scalia is saying is that the Constitution does not provide a basis for the USSC to REMOVE that decision from the legislative arena as regards sodomy rights.

But those laws by definition would imply enforcement. Enforcement would require the government to be allowed to monitor. Monitoring is certainly a privacy issue.

GRISWOLD v. CONNECTICUT, 381 U.S. 479 (1965) has some very useful linkages to multiple Constitutional amendments regarding privacy. How will the state know, unless it is free to invade one's home?

Note: I would argue that the state has the right to discuss public sexual behavior, and any private sexual behavior with minors. I'd be interested learning how to do that based on the Constitution, but I think it's easy: minors have the right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness and sexual abuse would clearly interfere.

13 posted on 04/03/2003 4:07:37 AM PST by risk
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies ]

To: WL-law
The Constitution DOES, however, require warrants to be issued on the basis only of specific testimony.

This makes a broad swath of possible laws that require intrusive enforcement unenforcable. The argument here is that laws against consensual sex acts are among those laws that are so bad, they are unconstitutional.

Does that make those laws prohibited or merely agressively stupid? Well, if laws are so stupid they invite violations of equal potection, maybe so. Then again, I make no claim to be as smart as Scalia. OTOH, with the bigamy question, Scalia is not being his usual brilliant self. If Scalia has to resort to questions that are transparently silly to lay persons, how strong is his position?
18 posted on 04/03/2003 9:42:48 AM PST by eno_
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies ]

To: WL-law
And you have an excellent point. For the SCOTUS to declare state bans on buggery unconstitutional per se, would be as bogus a practice of constitutional law as Roe v. Wade was. There may be other specific problems with this law, such as an equal protection issue that may appear in that it bans unnatural acts between males but not the exact same unnatural acts between opposite sexes.
28 posted on 04/03/2003 8:48:58 PM PST by The Red Zone
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson