Posted on 05/29/2003 11:42:24 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
Even though people on both sides of the issue deny it, it is increasingly obvious that homosexuality is dominating a new place on the scale of American political life. Even in conservative circles, prominent voices – some of whom I call friends, all of whom I respect – continually find themselves divided on not only the issue, but also how people of conscience respond to it.
In recent weeks, David Horowitz, president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, and Robert Knight of Concerned Women for America, have been "duking it out" on the issue of whether or not prominent faith-based conservatives (Gary Bauer, Paul Weyrich, Sandy Rios, et al.) should have confronted RNC Chairman Marc Racicot his meetings with the Human Rights Campaign and Log Cabin Republicans.
I have also had some recent spirited discussions with everyday people, fellow pundits, and talk-show types, among them Hugh Hewitt, Ann Coulter and Dennis Prager, who also disagree as to the basic tenets of some of what those "religious-right" types had to say to Chairman Racicot.
And since we are on the issue of the chairman of the RNC meeting with the "Log Cabins," let me take my position on that first. Chairman Racicot did nothing wrong in meeting with this group. The chairman's job is to meet with groups of all sorts. He is to allow them to say what they have to say, respond, and let them go. The devil is in the details.
Did he make concessions to them? Did he promise them things that compromise President Bush's otherwise stellar performance for social conservatives? If he did, then that is where and when all that is holy should break loose and crumble around him. On this point, I believe Horowitz is right – Chairman Racicot should be allowed to determine whom he will and will not meet with.
But I have noticed that when it comes to the entire issue of homosexuality, increasing numbers of banner conservatives are going soft on truth that has been commonly understood for thousands of years. That truth is this: Homosexuality is behavior that is damaging to individuals, to families and to society.
Conservatives have been scared into believing that there really is something about homosexuality that is uncontrollable or inherent in genetic or biological make-up to cause these people to behave in this manner. On this point, Horowitz is dead wrong – there is not a scintilla of proof that homosexuality is a genetic or biological trait. To believe otherwise diminishes Horowitz's credibility, at least on this issue.
So let's examine the statement that has been commonly understood for thousands of years.
It is damaging to individuals. It's true – from AIDS to suicide – look at the numbers. What single group of people is more affected than any others? Homosexual men. At the "International Mr. Leather" contest held in Chicago in 2002, a man died from the "activities" of the weekend. The sex was billed as blockbuster, but what difference does that make if you are found face up in a pool of your own blood after having been given larges dosages of the date rape drug?
The "gay" lifestyle does nothing to promote monogamous healthy relationships. Why? Because there is little, if anything, healthy about nihilism, narcissism and compulsive sexual addiction. Yet the community where these traits are not only seen, but also encouraged, is again among individuals wrapped up in the "gay life."
It is damaging to families. Heck, it destroys them. The "alphas" in homosexual relationships, be they men or women, are many times recruiting younger partners. A vast percentage of those who enter the homosexual life do so after having been sexually initiated by an older person of their sex – be it consensual or not – it usually has the feel of enticement or seduction. Homosexuality also destroys families by preventing their future possibility. Frank and Charlie can't have kids – at least not as God designed it. This basic, simple word picture should be easy to understand.
Homosexuality is damaging to society. Over Memorial Day weekend, here in Chicago, the International Mr. Leather event returned. First-hand accounts of hotel workers who were molested, security guards who resigned over fondling, as well as the inability to be allowed to keep order, and the city police who looked the other way while the most disgusting displays of ingestion, consumption, expulsion and any other bodily functions took place in public rooms should settle this issue.
But if you are still not convinced, go out and buy a copy of Dr. Cary Savitch's book, "The Nutcracker Is Already Dancing." Our fear to speak out on basic understandings of right vs. wrong is preventing our society from reaching its potential. But beyond that, we are also laying the foundation for a destructive future.
So what am I suggesting? That my otherwise clear-thinking conservative friends and colleagues be courageous and remind the world that one of the basic tenets of conservative values is knowing that there is such a thing as right and wrong. And for as long as God's creation has been here, homosexual behavior has always been – and continues to be – morally wrong.
Love for our fellow humans can only exist in the presence of truth. When will we as compassionate conservatives show enough compassion to love people to a better tomorrow?
The Framers intended the Constitution to be a limiting document, and the 9th and 10th Amendments describe the parameters of those limitations. The rights specified in the Constitution are NOT the only rights that citizens have (9th), and ALL the powers not specifically delegated to the federal government are reserved to the States or the people (10th).
From that body of rights and powers not given to the federal, the people and the states may at any future time delegate any of the powers, including the power to determine the extent any right may be exercised, to the federal. "Until they do that", those rights and powers remain in the hands of the people and the states for their own management. If the people wish to delegate that management to the states, they may. If to the federal, they may (through the amendment process and their state legislatures). If they wish to keep it to themselves and not to be controlled by either state or federal (such as between a woman and her doctor in the case of abortion), they may.
That is the way the assignment of power to the federal government is supposed to work. The 9th and 10th Amendments do not fix the division between specific rights and powers forever; they merely establish the dividing line at any given time, and that dividing line may be readjusted throughout the life of the republic.
You attempt to confine the exercise of human rights within the constitution and the 10th amendment. Governments do not have that power, no matter who votes how.
This thread seems like a rerun, so have the last word, my tolerance for this issue is very limited. I just wanted to point out that your first comment which brought me here was a contradiction of the meaning of rights.
Take the last word, I'm off to something more interesting.
Your claims are baseless. Please state some facts to back them up. You make wild-a** claims that fly in the face of hundreds of links presented here, and then name-call instead of supporting your lies with anything other than jive. You, sir or madam, are displaying YOUR complete bias and dishonesty. It makes me wonder why you so emotionally support the homosexual agenda.
Love your statements. Thanks for the insights. Loud applause. Bringing it all back home.
"...our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right." --- Thomas Jefferson
That's a pantload, and you know it.
My morality is my issue, as yours is your issue, and the reconciliation of our moral behavior, or lack of it, to His Word, is between ourselves, and Our Maker...He did not appoint you, Congress, or anyone else for that matter, as His deputy here on Earth.
No, I'm not attacking libertarian thought at all. I'm asking you to provide justification for your philosophy. You say "should obviously be opposed." That isn't obvious as many people don't have any problem violating the rights of others. Why do you think it should be opposed?
Shalom.
Let's keep it that way, shall we?
Shalom.
I'm not trying to make an argument, I'm trying to make a point. Actually, two points.
1) You should always know why you believe what you believe and be able to state it as clearly and succintly as possible. "It's obvious" may be required, but should seldom be used. In asking you the question, I was asking you if you can state why you believe what you believe?
2) Our society must protect the rights of individuals because if it did not do so it would cease to be our society and the humanity of every individual would suffer as a result. Those who were not directly impacted by black slavery were indirectly impacted by allowing it to continue. They had to "check part of their humanity at the door" to be able to turn their heads at such cruel and inhumane treatment of human beings. Simply put, you are lessened when you refuse to get involved when a wrong is committed - even if that wrong doesn't involve you. That is why you get involved. Not only are you lessened, but the society in which you thrive is lessened and will ultimately be destroyed. You are your brother's keeper and you suffer if you won't act the part.
Having made that point, it is my contention that by allowing sexual immorality to continue we are also lessened as human beings and our society is lessened. By not standing up for right you are plowed under by wrong. Homosexuals need our help, not our condescension, and not our "tolerance". If we can't recognize that and stand up for it, we will all suffer just as our nation would have suffered if it had tolerated black slavery to continue - actually as our nation has suffered because of our history of black slavery.
All that evil needs to succeed is for good men to do nothing.
Shalom.
Matters of life and death are clear cut. I don't want someone to kill me. That deprives me of my life, my right to life. Therefore, I won't kill others and deny them the rights I expect to enjoy. I won't allow others to kill if I can prevent it. Genuine matters of human rights are just that objective.
Matters of morality are a lot more subjective. That's why they should remain the realm of the home and church, not the state. You may think someone smoking pot or having sex with the wrong person is "damaging to society", but I hope you can admit that that's decidedly subjective. The guy who sits in his house and smokes a joint Saturday afternoon does me no harm. I have no standing to prevent him from making that choice, even though I think it's an unwise habit.
No doubt there are people (perhaps even you) who think MTV, miniskirts, and alcohol are damaging to society and would choose to outlaw those if they had the political power to do so. But we live in a free nation that respects differences and strives for a utilitarian coexistance. Imposing your subjective morality on others when there is no clear force or fraud commited against you or others is an illegitimate usurpation of government force for the purpose of imposing your values on others.
I'm all for morality. But I think it's dangerous, futile, and unconstitutional to put moral enforcement in the hands of government.
If there is a moral law, they are not subjective. They may be difficult to determine, but they are not subjective. You can't do a repeatable experiment, but you can observe, deduce, and finally argue for change. That's the way we do things in this society and the way we should.
There has been a change recently to normalize homosexuality. Note: not to criminalize it, to normalize it. This change has been made and it was a moral change. But it was not made with argument and pursuasion, it was done with violence and threats combined with a general effort to cover up the facts. That's far more dangerous than any other social change made in the name of a morality than anything the religious have suggested.
I'm all for morality. But I think it's dangerous, futile, and unconstitutional to put moral enforcement in the hands of government.
And yet, all laws are moral laws. Everything the government enforces comes from a moral position. I might argue that if you can't defend your life you don't deserve to have it, and for the good of our country we should decriminalize murder. That would be a particular moral position. Thankfully nobody has convinced our population that it is the correct one.
A moral change was made. Its enforcement is being put in the hands of government (there are far more laws being suggested to punish any negative thought regarding queers than there ever have been to punish queers). A case in favor of that change needs to be made and it has not been.
And I think it was a bad decision. I will continue to argue so.
Shalom.
our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions
Amendment VIII: Thomas Jefferson, A Bill for Proportioning Crimes ... Thomas Jefferson, A Bill for Proportioning Crimes and Punishments
Whosoever shall be guilty of Rape, Polygamy, or Sodomy with man or woman shall be punished, if a man, by castration, if a woman, by cutting thro' the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch diameter at the least.
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.
Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 US 186 (1986) The Constitution does not confer a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy.
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.
But sadly, I think you really don't see it. You are ready to drink the Kool Aid for big government morality police.
Bottom line, you simply seek to have the government impose by force that which you fail to invoke by persuasion. I will never support that.
you simply seek to have the government impose by force that which you fail to invoke by persuasion.
SODOMY: Brief Of The States Of Alabama, South Carolina, And Utah (S.C.O.T.U.S.& Sodomy)
In keeping with the historical analysis described above, this Court has primarily limited its recognition of non-textual fundamental rights in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to "personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education." 27 In 1997, this Court cataloged the list as follows:
In a long line of cases, we have held that, in addition to the specific freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights, the "liberty" specifically protected by the Due Process Clause includes the rights to marry, LOVING V. VIRGINIA , 388 U.S. 1 (1967); to have children, SKINNER V. OKLAHOMA EX REL. WILLIAMSON , 316 U.S. 535 (1942); to direct the education and upbringing of one's children, MEYER V. NEBRASKA , 262 U.S. 390 (1923); PIERCE V. SOCIETY OF SISTERS , 268 U.S. 510 (1925); to marital privacy, GRISWOLD V. CONNECTICUT , 381 U.S. 479 (1965); to use contraception, IBID. ; EISENSTADT V. BAIRD , 405 U.S. 438 (1972); to bodily integrity, ROCHIN V. CALIFORNIA , 342 U.S. 165 (1952); and to abortion, [ PLANNED PARENTHOOD V. CASEY , 505 U.S. 833 (1992)]. 28
"The entire fabric of the Constitution and the purposes that clearly underlie its specific guarantees demonstrate that the rights to marital privacy and to marry and raise a family are of similar order and magnitude as the fundamental rights specifically protected." 29
The fundamental role of marriage and family in our society has been recognized on many occasions by the Court. In ZABLOCKI V. REDHAIL , 30 the Court invalidated a Wisconsin statute requiring certain persons to obtain a court order before marrying:
[T]he right to marry is of fundamental importance for all individuals. Long ago in MAYNARD V. HILL , 125 U.S. 190 (1888), the Court characterized marriage as "the most important relation in life," ID. , at 205, and as "the foundation of the family and of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress," ID. , at 211. In MEYER V. NEBRASKA , 262 U.S. 390 (1923), the Court recognized that the right "to marry, establish a home, and bring up children" is a central part of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause, ID. , at 399, and in SKINNER V. OKLAHOMA EX REL. WILLIAMSON , 316 U.S. 535 (1942), marriage was described as "fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race," 316 U.S. at 541. 31
The Court went on to conclude that the right to marry is one of the "matters of family life" protected by the right of privacy implicit in the Due Process Clause. 32 In MOORE V. CITY OF EAST CLEVELAND , the Court also dwelt on the historical role of marriage and the family in American society: "Our decisions establish that the Constitution protects the sanctity of the family precisely because the institution of the family is deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition." 33
This Court has never recognized a fundamental right to engage in sexual activity outside of monogamous heterosexual marriage, let alone to engage in homosexual sodomy. Such a right would be antithetical to the "traditional relation of the family" that is "as old and as fundamental as our entire civilization." 34 Even the amorphous "right to privacy" recognized in GRISWOLD and expanded upon in ROE V. WADE was never intended to include a right to have sex with whomever and however one pleased. In ROE V. WADE , this Court stated that the Due Process Clause does not include "an unlimited right to do with one's body as one pleases." 35 Twenty-five years later, in WASHINGTON V. GLUCKSBERG , this Court again rejected the proposition that "all important, intimate, and personal decisions" are protected by the Due Process Clause. 36
In his POE V. ULLMAN 37 dissent, which foreshadowed the recognition of the marital right of privacy in GRISWOLD V. CONNECTICUT , Justice Harlan said that homosexual activity, even when "concealed in the home," was a proper matter of state concern and could be forbidden by the States:
Yet the very inclusion of the category of morality among state concerns indicates that society is not limited in its objects only to the physical well-being of the community, but has traditionally concerned itself with the moral soundness of its people as well. Indeed to attempt a line between public behavior and that which is purely consensual or solitary would be to withdraw from community concern a range of subjects with which every society in civilized time has found it necessary to deal. The laws regarding marriage which provide both when the sexual powers may be used and the legal and societal context in which children are born and brought up, as well as laws forbidding adultery, fornication, and homosexual practices which express the negative of the proposition, confining sexuality to lawful marriage, form a pattern so deeply pressed into the substance of our social life that any Constitutional doctrine must be built upon that basis. 38
SODOMY : CENTER FOR THE ORIGINAL INTENT OF THE CONSTITUTION (LAWRENCE v. TEXAS SODOMY BRIEF)
THE HISTORIC AUTHORITY OF THE STATES TO CRIMINALIZE SODOMY IS WELL-SETTLED
The historical evidence clearly shows that state legislatures have always possessed a broad authority to outlaw private, consensual sex, and that they also prohibited same-sex sodomy specifically since the earliest days of American history. Enactment of the Bill of Rights in 1791 and the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 did not alter that state legislative authority.
This Court has frequently looked to the Constitution's "text, history and precedent" to determine its meaning. ELDRED V. ASHCROFT , ___ U.S. ___, 123 S.Ct. 769, 777 (2003). As this Court recently reiterated in ELDRED V. ASHCROFT , "a page of history is worth a volume of logic." ID ., quoting NEW YORK TRUST COMPANY V. EISNER , 256 U.S. 345, 349 (1921); SEE ALSO U.S. TERM LIMITS, INC. V. THORNTON , 514 U.S. 779, 790 (1995) ("Against this historical background, we viewed the Convention debates as manifesting the Framers' intent that the qualifications in the Constitution be fixed and exclusive.").
It is a settled constitutional principle within our federal republic that states possess general police powers. Inherent within these powers lies the duty to regulate the "health, safety, and morals" of their members. BARNES V. GLEN THEATER , 501 U.S. 560, 569 (1991) (referencing public indecency statutes which were designed to protect morals and public order). States have used this police power to promote marriage and direct the sexual activities of their citizens into marriage by criminalizing a wide variety of nonmarital sex acts, such as polygamy, rape, fornication, adultery, prostitution and incest. While crimes such as rape and incest are not consensual, adultery, prostitution, polygamy and fornication are private acts between consenting adults that have been regulated throughout our nation's history. As we shall demonstrate, states have possessed and properly exercised the authority to regulate deviate sexual conduct including sodomy at all relevant times in our nation's history.
SODOMY : Legislators,State of Texas, Lawrence v. Texas, No. 02-102
In evaluating whether § 21.06 is rational, the Court should consider that the provision is one part of a larger network of laws designed to further the legitimate State interest of promoting traditional marriage of one man and one woman.
The laws regarding marriage which provide both when the sexual powers may be used and the legal and societal context in which children are born and brought up, as well as laws forbidding adultery, fornication and homosexual practices which express the negative of the proposition, confining sexuality to lawful marriage, form a pattern so deeply pressed into the substance of our social life that any Constitutional doctrine in this area must build upon that basis.
Poe , 367 U.S. at 546 (Harlan, J., dissenting). The connection between § 21.06 and marriage is undeniable. The same legislature which changed the Texas sodomy law in 1973 to its current form, at the same time changed Texas' marriage law to explicitly specify, for the first time, that marriage in Texas may only be between "a man and a woman." T EX . F AM . C ODE § 2.001 (Acts 1973, 63rd Leg., p. 1596, ch. 577, § 1). Even in teaching sexual education, Texas law emphasizes that sex should be within marriage and other conduct, such as homosexual sex, is discouraged. Sex education materials must "emphasize sexual abstinence before marriage and fidelity in marriage as the expected standard" and must discourage "homosexual conduct" and note that it violates § 21.06. T EX . H EALTH & S AFETY C ODE § 85.007.
You are really looking through a delusional and conspiratorial set of lenses. It's almost amuzing.
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