Posted on 05/13/2003 7:36:32 AM PDT by Remedy
As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to decide whether a Texas law that criminalizes sex between homosexuals is constitutional, once again the debate over gay rights has become the center of an unfolding drama between those who oppose it for religious/moral reasons and those who champion it.
Yet this case is more than just a legal battle over gay rights—it is part of a cultural war over whether homosexual behavior, as a whole, will not only be legalized but also considered a legitimate lifestyle.
Prior to reaching the high court, this debate has already played out in the halls of public opinion. For example, references to homosexuality, once considered a taboo topic, have become almost the norm in popular culture. In fact, changes in the status of homosexuals in American society have been in the offing since the 1960s. Indeed, in 1961 every state prohibited homosexual sodomy. Today, however, only 13 states make such activity a crime, and only nine criminalize heterosexual sodomy.
As an old adage reminds us, once society engages in debate on an issue, the new idea has, in many respects, already gained ground and will eventually triumph. Thus, despite the fervent rhetoric by both sides over what has been termed a landmark case, the fact is that without the Supreme Court justices even having to lift a finger, the final outcome may already have been decided. But there are still issues such as privacy and the role of morality in lawmaking to be resolved.
In the Texas case, police investigating a bogus weapons disturbance at a Houston apartment found John Lawrence and Tyron Garner in the bedroom engaged in a sexual act. Citing a Texas law that makes it a misdemeanor to be engaged in "deviate sexual intercourse," the policeman arrested and handcuffed the two men. After spending the night in jail, Lawrence and Garner were each fined $200.
Seeing this as a test case of momentous proportions, homosexual advocacy groups such as Lambda Defense Fund rushed to the defense of the two men, arguing that the Texas law is unconstitutional. Now it’s up to the Supreme Court to decide whether gay men have a fundamental right to engage in sexual activity in the privacy of their homes without state interference. As Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe cryptically pointed out, the key question, he argues, should be "not what were Lawrence and his partner doing in that bedroom, but what was Texas doing there?"
The Supreme Court has passed this way before. For example, in 1986 in Bowers v. Hardwick, the court upheld a Georgia sodomy law. That decision applied to both homosexual and heterosexual sodomy and, thus, did not single out gays. Only two of the justices who voted to knock down the Georgia law, however, are still on the Supreme Court. And in Romer v. Evans, a 1996 case that did single out gays, the court held unconstitutional a Colorado law that would have prohibited homosexuals, lesbians and bisexuals from making discrimination claims based on a "minority status."
The two plaintiffs in Lawrence v. Texas argue that state interference in their sexual lives violates their right to privacy. And because the law criminalizes homosexual sodomy but not heterosexual sodomy, they allege that it violates their right to equal protection under the law. The state of Texas, on the other hand, arguing in favor of its sodomy law, insists that the law "furthers the state’s longstanding moral disapproval of homosexual conduct and the deterrence of such immoral sexual activity."
Having been used successfully in the past (the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts have upheld government actions intended to promote morality), the morality card is once again a central argument in the state’s case. Yet as some critics have pointed out, with a climbing divorce rate and a plethora of other vices abounding in our society, if maintaining morality is the objective of such laws, then the state could just as well focus on and criminalize adultery and other moral problems that lead to shattered lives and broken families.
Once the state’s primary objective becomes the advancement of morality, however, the list of sins it could attack is infinite. In such a climate, any freedom or privacy we might have once possessed could well be lost.
As with the evolution of so many other once-taboo issues like adultery, divorce and deviant heterosexual behavior, the general public has clearly also changed its views over time regarding homosexuality. According to a recent Gallup Poll, in 1986, the year Bowers v. Hardwick was decided, only 32 percent of those polled thought homosexual relations should be legalized. By 2001, the percentage had risen to 54 percent. "In short," notes Gallup, "over a 19 year period from 1982 to 2001, Americans moved from leaning against the acceptability of homosexuality to a slight majority acceptance on the issue."
"What really determines what we regard as essential fundamental features of sexual autonomy," notes Yale Law School professor Jack Balkin, "is very much cultural." And the cultural change we are seeing is due to a number of factors. One is the growing visibility of gays in entertainment and the media. Another is the emotional residue from the AIDS epidemic and its debilitating effect on gays, which has drawn sympathy for the gay plight. Then there is the tendency of Americans to identify with the perceived underdog.
There has also been a slow softening in how mainstream religion views gays. And as the acceptance and/or compassionate view of homosexuality has grown, it has tended to marginalize the more fundamentalist denominations represented by public figures such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and others. Statements attributed to these religious leaders have made fundamentalists appear harsh and non-compassionate.
Conservatives as well have tended to paint themselves in stark colors. One recent example is the remark by Sen. Rick Santorum’s, R-Pa., about the Texas sodomy case. "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home," Santorum opined, "then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of society? I would argue yes, it does. If you say, ‘There is no deviant as long as it’s private, as long as it’s consensual,’ then don’t be surprised what you get."
While Santorum’s statement has been labeled hysterical, his underlying concern seems to be for the protection of the traditional family. Yet the truth of the matter is that the traditional family (comprised of a father, mother and children) has been in trouble for some time now. This is reflected in the soaring divorce rate, even in religious circles. One Barna survey showed that in the so-called "Bible Belt" states where church attendance reaches 70 percent, the divorce rates are as much as 50 percent higher than those in other states. And the percentages of couples living together out of wedlock in these states grew at a much faster rate during the 1990s than in other parts of the country.
What has become evident is that as a society we are in a conundrum. With the demise of the influence of traditional religion, the spiritual glue that once held us together is gone. The older moral absolutes have dissolved into a labyrinth of competing voices. Where once we sought solace in our families, churches or synagogues, we are now subsumed by a barrage of media images and television news that more and more simply report what the state wishes us to hear.
Thus, we are in trouble in more ways than one. And as the Supreme Court renders its opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, we must remember that the nine justices are not wizards with magical powers. They are mere mortals like the rest of us, trying their best to navigate the ever-shifting changes in America’s cultural and moral landscape.
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute.
FOR SAME/OPPOSITE SEX SODOMY COMPARISION SEE - Texas Phys.Resource Council, Christian Med. & Dental Association, Catholic Med.Association Glen Lavy, Counsel of Record
Nations most often fall from within, and this fall is usually due to a decline in the moral and spiritual values in the family. As families go, so goes a nation.
This has been the main premise of thinkers from British historian J. D. Unwin to Russian sociologist Pitirim Sorokin who have studied civilizations that have collapsed. In his book Our Dance Has Turned to Death, Carl Wilson identifies the common pattern of family decline in ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. Notice how these seven stages parallel what is happening in our nation today. In the first stage, men ceased to lead their families in worship. Spiritual and moral development became secondary. Their view of God became naturalistic, mathematical, and mechanical.
In the second stage, men selfishly neglected care of their wives and children to pursue material wealth, political and military power, and cultural development. Material values began to dominate thought, and the man began to exalt his own role as an individual. The third stage involved a change in men's sexual values. Men who were preoccupied with business or war either neglected their wives sexually or became involved with lower-class women or with homosexuality. Ultimately, a double standard of morality developed. The fourth stage affected women. The role of women at home and with children lost value and status. Women were neglected and their roles devalued. Soon they revolted to gain access to material wealth and also freedom for sex outside marriage. Women also began to minimize having sex relations to conceive children, and the emphasis became sex for pleasure. Marriage laws were changed to make divorce easy.
In the fifth stage, husbands and wives competed against each other for money, home leadership, and the affection of their children. This resulted in hostility and frustration and possible homosexuality in the children. Many marriages ended in separation and divorce.
Many children were unwanted, aborted, abandoned, molested, and undisciplined. The more undisciplined children became, the more social pressure there was not to have children. The breakdown of the home produced anarchy.
In the sixth stage, selfish individualism grew and carried over into society, fragmenting it into smaller and smaller group loyalties. The nation was thus weakened by internal conflict. The decrease in the birthrate produced an older population that had less ability to defend itself and less will to do so, making the nation more vulnerable to its enemies.
Finally, unbelief in God became more complete, parental authority diminished, and ethical and moral principles disappeared, affecting the economy and government. Thus, by internal weakness and fragmentation the societies came apart. There was no way to save them except by a dictator who arose from within or by barbarians who invaded from without.
Although this is an ancient pattern of decline found in Greece and Rome, it is relevant today. Families are the foundation of a nation. When the family crumbles, the nation falls because nations are built upon family units. They are the true driving social force. A nation will not be strong unless the family is strong. That was true in the ancient world and it is true today.
Social commentator Michael Novak, writing on the importance of the family, said:
One unforgettable law has been learned through all the disasters and injustices of the last thousand years: If things go well with the family, life is worth living; when the family falters, life falls apart.
Is Same-Sex Marriage Good for the Nation? The only source for unalienable rights in all human history is the Creator, the God of the Bible.
Judaism's Sexual Revolution: Why Judaism (and then Christianity) Rejected HomosexualityWhen Judaism demanded that all sexual activity be channeled into marriage, it changed the world. The Torah's prohibition of non-marital sex quite simply made the creation of Western civilization possible. Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity. The acceptance of homosexuality as the equal of heterosexual marital love signifies the decline of Western civilization as surely as the rejection of homosexuality and other nonmarital sex made the creation of this civilization possible.
Homosexuality: A Political Mask For Promiscuity: A Psychiatrist Reviews The Data Indeed, the Torah reserves its most intense condemnation for homosexuality: "to'eva" - abomination...
BURGER, C.J., Concurring Opinion Decisions of individuals relating to homosexual conduct have been subject to state intervention throughout the history of Western civilization. Condemnation of those practices is firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards. Homosexual sodomy was a capital crime under Roman law.... During the English Reformation, when powers of the ecclesiastical courts were transferred to the King's Courts, the first English statute criminalizing sodomy was passed.... Blackstone described "the infamous crime against nature" as an offense of "deeper malignity" than rape, a heinous act "the very mention of which is a disgrace to human nature," and "a crime not fit to be named." W. Blackstone, Commentaries . The common law of England, including its prohibition of sodomy, became the received law of Georgia and the other Colonies. In 1816, the Georgia Legislature passed the statute at issue here, and that statute has been continuously in force in one form or another since that time. To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.
Hundreds rally for '10 Commandments judge' Moore wrote a separate concurring opinion, repudiating homosexuality on religious grounds, calling it "abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of nature and of nature's God."
"Popular culture" is newspeak for anything that goes against the teachings of Christ.
funny aint it that priest who **** kids are straight huh?
This troll must be a big fan of Miss Mark Morford.
This is actually very insightful of the author ... and why "broad-brush" generalizations usually fails as a political strategy.
That statement is essentially a bluff. The omnisexualites are arguing that in order to be consistant there should be laws supporting fidelity in marriage in the hopes that society will withdraw in horror at the thought of losing the opportunity for extra-marrital activities. So, omnisexualites are offering to trade sodomy for continued adulterous escapades.
Perhaps, it wouldn't be popular, especially among politicians, but I would support the criminalizing of adultery. I'm open to the punishment, but if it protects even one child...
The acceptance of adultery is leading to acceptance of homosexuality, not the other way around.
So it's just that either/or, huh? You don't think you're leaving out a little bit of the continuum of thought in between these too extremes?
religious/moral reasons and those who champion it So it's just that either/or, huh? You don't think you're leaving out a little bit of the continuum of thought in between these too extremes?
O.K. - PUBLIC HEALTH
Texas Phys.Resource Council, Christian Med. & Dental Association, Catholic Med.Association Texas has a legitimate interest in regulating public health, and the CDC has identified sexually transmitted diseases ("STDs") as a public health problem. Sodomy is an efficient method of transmitting STDs. And regardless of the reason, same-sex sodomy is far more effective in spreading STDs than opposite-sex sodomy. Multiple studies have estimated that 40 percent or more of men who practice anal sex acquire STDs. In fact, same-sex sodomy has resulted in the transformation of diseases previously transmitted only through fecally contaminated food and water into sexually caused diseases primarily among those who practice same-sex sodomy.
Santorum had it backwards.
SIDEWAYS, CATAWAMPUS, INVERTED….WHATEVER…JUST SIGN THE PETITION.
Support Sen. Santorum's strong stand for family (PETITION) Petition opened April 23, 2003, 27,046 Signatures
Of course.
Because of the nature of the crime, the penalties for the act of sodomy were often severe. For example, Thomas Jefferson indicated that in his home state of Virginia, "dismemberment" of the offensive organ was the penalty for sodomy. 7 In fact, Jefferson himself authored a bill penalizing sodomy by castration. 8 The laws of the other states showed similar or even more severe penalties:
That the detestable and abominable vice of buggery [sodomy] . . . shall be from henceforth adjudged felony . . . and that every person being thereof convicted by verdict, confession, or outlawry [unlawful flight to avoid prosecution], shall be hanged by the neck until he or she shall be dead. 9 NEW YORK
That if any man shall lie with mankind as he lieth with womankind, both of them have committed abomination; they both shall be put to death. 10 CONNECTICUT
Sodomy . . . shall be punished by imprisonment at hard labour in the penitentiary during the natural life or lives of the person or persons convicted of th[is] detestable crime. 11 GEORGIA
That if any man shall commit the crime against nature with a man or male child . . . every such offender, being duly convicted thereof in the Supreme Judicial Court, shall be punished by solitary imprisonment for such term not exceeding one year and by confinement afterwards to hard labor for such term not exceeding ten years. 12 MAINE
That if any person or persons shall commit sodomy . . . he or they so offending or committing any of the said crimes within this province, their counsellors, aiders, comforters, and abettors, being convicted thereof as above said, shall suffer as felons. 13 [And] shall forfeit to the Commonwealth all and singular the lands and tenements, goods and chattels, whereof he or she was seized or possessed at the time . . . at the discretion of the court passing the sentence, not exceeding ten years, in the public gaol or house of correction of the county or city in which the offence shall have been committed and be kept at such labor. 14 PENNSYLVANIA
[T]he detestable and abominable vice of buggery [sodomy] . . . be from henceforth adjudged felony . . . and that the offenders being hereof convicted by verdict, confession, or outlawry [unlawful flight to avoid prosecution], shall suffer such pains of death and losses and penalties of their goods. 15 SOUTH CAROLINA
That if any man lieth with mankind as he lieth with a woman, they both shall suffer death. 16 VERMONT
8. Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew A. Lipscomb, editor (Washington, D. C.: Thomas Jefferson M emorial Association, 1904), Vol. I, pp. 226-227, from Jefferson's "For Proportioning Crimes and Punishments."
9. Laws of the State of New-York . . . Since the Revolution (New York: Thomas Greenleaf, 1798), Vol. I, p. 336.
10. The Public Statute Laws of the State of Connecticut (Hartford: Hudson and Goodwin, 1808), Book I, p. 295.
11. A Digest of the Laws of the State of Georgia (Milledgeville: Grantland & Orme, 1822), p. 350.
12. Laws of the State of Maine (Hallowell: Goodale, Glazier & Co., 1822), p. 58.
13. Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: John Bioren, 1810), Vol. I, p. 113.
14. Collinson Read, An Abridgment of the Laws of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1801), p. 279.
15. Alphabetical Digest of the Public Statute Laws of South-Carolina (Charleston: John Hoff, 1814), Vol. I, p. 99.
16. Statutes of the State of Vermont (Bennington, 1791), p. 74.
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