Supreme Court Strikes Down Gay Sex Ban

AP via Yahoo ^ | 6/26/03 | AP

[jethropalerobber]

Supreme Court Strikes Down Gay Sex Ban

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court struck down a ban on gay sex Thursday, ruling that the law was an unconstitutional violation of privacy.

The 6-3 ruling reverses course from a ruling 17 years ago that states could punish homosexuals for what such laws historically called deviant sex.

The case is a major reexamination of the rights and acceptance of gay people in the United States. More broadly, it also tests a state's ability to classify as a crime what goes on behind the closed bedroom doors of consenting adults.

Thursday's ruling invalidated a Texas law against "deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex."

Defending that law, Texas officials said that it promoted the institutions of marriage and family, and argued that communities have the right to choose their own standards.

The law "demeans the lives of homosexual persons," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority.

[aristeides]

Link to Kennedy's opinion.

I wonder if the RATs in the Senate would now approve Kennedy's elevation to Chief Justice.

[F16Fighter]

"The law 'demeans the lives of homosexual persons,' Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority."

And Anthony Kennedy is a conservative??

We can expect "yea" ruling from the SC on the anticipated forthcoming Fido-Harvey Fierstein case as well...

[aristeides]

Link to Scalia's dissent.

[dufekin]

For some reason--I must be a complete idiot--I can't find this right to privacy in the Constitution. I can find this:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

(Fourth Amendment)

I'm kinda confused. Please help this moron who is getting the feeling that the Court is lurching left. If I'm right, and I must not be--after all, the Supremes are Supreme--it must be time for Stevens and O'Conner to retire, replaced by, say, Estrada and Owens.

[aristeides]

Link to Thomas's dissent.

[aristeides]

Tnere may be no right to privacy in the Constitution, but, once the Supreme Court had claimed to have discovered it, and applied it to abortion, it was always strange that it was not applied to homosexuality.

[aristeides]

Link to O'Connor's concurrence in the judgment.

[Naspino]

After the court ruled that child porn was legal so long as it was conducted virtually -- are you surprised by this. I guess this is not a ruling that Gephardt would issue an executive order to overturn.

[goodnesswins]

I wish "right to privacy" meant the homosexual's had to keep their sex lives PRIVATE FROM THE REST OF US!!!

[Naspino]

Hey guy what about sex btw a man and women? shouldnt that be illeagle too? Why not?

.. because all laws have derived from a perception of morality largely based on the primary faith that the country was founded upon.

[MHGinTN]

Kennedy is a senile old fool who ignored the 'how' this case got to the courts, the 'set up' perpetrated by the homos to get this case running the court system. The queers involved (three of them) had been trying to get a Georgia case going on homo marriage. Well, the senile old fart, Kennedy, has made their day!

In queer dens all over America, the homos are laughing their asses off, salivating over their 'victory'. If folks don't realize what's going on, here's a clue: the entire exercise was part of the homo agenda to force their deviant behavior to be protected and given the same right to marriages, etc., equal to the traditional institution of marriage. The homo agenda is to transform this nation into their deviancy play ground.

Frankly, it won't be as difficult as the queers were thinking it would be ... as Kennedy and others have proven for them. Homo marriage is the next case they will seek to push through the putrified court system. Democrats, with their decidely leftist pallor, will empower the deviants even more, all in the name of division and vote raking, and the hell with the nation. See, leftists realize but will not tell you, when they do finally take control of this nation, even if it means corrupting it to the point of mortality, they will then dictate how the nation is to carry on, under their whim regardless of those moldy old 'living, yet senile documents'. The democrat left will make other forms of despotism pale by comparison.

[aristeides]

Kennedy: "Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today. It ought not to remain binding precedent. Bowers v. Hardwick should be and now is overruled."

[Marysecretary]

This is why it is of utmost urgency to pray for the justice system in our nation. It is essential to get conservative, clear thinking judges in, despite the democrats. We need warfare praying for this. If we don't have a shift in the judicial system, we are sliding into more and more bad judgements. May God help us all.

[Reagan is King]

Yet another reason why we need to make sure we get (and keep) a larger Senate majority in 2004 so we can get some REAL conservative justices on the bench instead of the milquetoast liberal justices put on there by both Democrap and previous Repulican administrations.

[L.N. Smithee]

LOL!

[Eagle Eye]

How many homo acts did the law stop?

None?

Well, what's the problem in getting rid of an ineffective, virtually unenforcable law?

The government shouldn't be policing what CONSENTING ADULTS do in their own homes. It's called Freedom.

And, of course, I now must go on the record as being straight and abhoring homo behavior for the abomination it is.

But guess what? Even God Almighty gave man free will to choose life or death. God doesn't stop them, who and why should the government?

[NewJerseyRepublican]

Sounds about right. Sodomy laws are pointlessly unenforcable in the first place. Anything that takes the federal government out of our private lives is fine by me.

[aristeides]

Kennedy: "The laws involved in Bowers and here are, to be sure, statutes that purport to do no more than prohibit a particular sexual act. Their penalties and purposes, though, have more far-reaching consequences, touching upon the most private human conduct, sexual behavior, and in the most private of places, the home. The statutes do seek to control a personal relationship that, whether or not entitled to formal recognition in the law, is within the liberty of persons to choose without being punished as criminals." (Emphasis added).

Those italicized words are a reference to gay marriage and domestic partnerships.

[jimt]

Texas defended its sodomy law as in keeping with the state's interest in protecting marriage and child-rearing. Homosexual sodomy, the state argued in legal papers, "has nothing to do with marriage or conception or parenthood and it is not on a par with these sacred choices."

Thanks for posting the extra text.

The state has a legitimate interest in protecting marriage and child-rearing.

What faggots do in their bedrooms has nothing to do with either.