U.S. Supreme Court rewrites Constitution and 3,000 years of history

Alliance Defense Fund | 6/26/03 | Richard K. Jefferson

[Polycarp]

U.S. Supreme Court rewrites

Constitution and 3,000 years of history

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court today rewrote the U.S. Constitution and 3,000 years of legal history by striking down the Texas sodomy law in a 6-3 decision.

The court overrode the Constitution, the history of American law, and its own precedent by declaring in Lawrence v. Texas that there is a right to privacy to protect private, adult consensual sexual activity. Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority, and only Justices Scalia and Thomas and Chief Justice Rhenquist dissented. The majority reasoned, unbelievably, that because of the trend in state legislatures to repeal sodomy laws, these laws have become unconstitutional.

The Alliance Defense Fund, a national legal organization based in Scottsdale, Arizona, said the framers of the Constitution could never have imagined an interpretation finding in the Constitution a right to engage in the act of sodomy.

“We are disappointed but we’re not giving up hope and we’re not going away,” said Jordan Lorence, a senior litigator with the Alliance Defense Fund. “This ruling provides us with new opportunities. We have already prevailed in other key cases, and we must persevere.” The Alliance Defense Fund supported the prevailing parties in Hurley v. Irish-American Group of Boston and Boy Scouts of America v. Dale.

In its 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick decision, the court upheld laws against sodomy. Then Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote in his concurring opinion “… in constitutional terms there is no such thing as a fundamental right to commit homosexual sodomy.” Burger continued: “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…[Sir William] 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.’ To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.”

“It would have been a better day if the court had taken Burger’s words to heart, and followed its own holding in Bowers, and 3,000 years of history and precedent,” Lorence said.

The Alliance Defense Fund serves people of faith; it provides strategy, training, and funding in the legal battle for religious liberty, sanctity of life, and traditional family values.

Richard K. Jefferson Senior Director National Media Relations Alliance Defense Fund rjefferson@alliancedefensefund.org (480) 444-0020 15333 North Pima Road, Suite 165 Scottsdale, AZ 85260

[Technogeeb]

This was NOT such a case. The police were responding to a reported weapons disturbance in a private residence, which turned out to be a false report.

The false report was filed by another homosexual. The whole thing was a con just so they could get this case before the court. When the police first arrived, they told the men (who were engaging in sodomy) to stop and answer questions. The men refused and continued to engage in sodomy to insure the charges would be filed. The homosexual community in Texas has been talking about doing something like this for years.

[weegee]

The law has been struck down in Texas but I would like to know if this has struck down all other states' sex laws? After all, the issue raised was privacy.

If not all sex laws, does it strike down all laws against sodomy?

[weegee]

Adultery and (unmarried) fornication were illegal at one time (through the middle of the 20th century no less).

The laws against such acts were never ruled unconstitutional. The supreme court did not strike down all such laws. They were slowly removed state by state in the state legislatures.

Somehow, this is a different sex act because that was not the avenue that the proponents used.

[weegee]

Look, the case wasn't about the wisdom of sodomy, it was about whether it should be a felony, so that persons engaging in consensual sex acts should be liable to being imprisoned in the penitentiary.

The offense of homosexual sodomy carried no jail time in Harris County, the maximum penalty was a fine. A felony? Please explain.

[DannyTN]

"But not to stigmatize homosexuals..."

The same way a law against theft teaches that theft is wrong or to use the lanquage of discrimination "stigmatizes the act of theft". And if someone then commits theft, prosecution of that act could be said to "stigmatize theives".

The purpose of any criminal or misdemeaner statue is #1 to prevent that action from occuring.

Think about how many times you have heard someone try to justify their actions by saying "there's no law against it, is there?". Such a statement doesn't justify the act. But a law does help provide moral clarity.

[CobaltBlue]

It's a felony in Virginia.

[ninenot]

OK, I'll accept that ad argumendem.

But you still haven't explained how a non-existent "right to privacy" overcomes the 9th Amendment.

Neither did Kennedy, nor O'Connor, et al.

[ninenot]

A DA who spent precious taxpayer money prosecuting 5000 gay couples would be ridden out of town on a rail before he could do it. by 10,000 furious queers with their purses waving??

[ninenot]

bestiality comports nicely with Natural Law

In Texas, apparently.

Does Tx. have a law forbidding bestiality in public? If not, the field is wide open (heh, heh.)

[ninenot]

Griswold was decided based on the Lambeth Conference's "blessing" of contraception which erroneously invalidated another 3,000+ year old moral imperative.

Baird, far more to the point, was a commerce case, based on Griswold's conclusions.

Bork, BTW, is wrong on a lot of items, and a Constitutional "right to privacy" is one of them.

[Skywalk]

Ah, so you are for a law that say, bans contraception, like in the Griswold v. Connecticut case?

That is a reasonable law to you?

"''It has been objected also against a bill of rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the fourth resolution"

That's Alex Hamilton.

Do we have rights covered under the 9th, or don't we?

If marital privacy was protected under the 9th, why not sodomy?

[Skywalk]

Oops, nevermind. You addressed Griswold.

[ninenot]

The case was about Texas' right to make and enforce such laws. The Supremes continue to derogate the 9th Amendment by relying on invented "privacy," and on Zeitgeist PC.

[ninenot]

All homo sodomy laws are struck, in effect. Same with hetero sodomy.

In this morning's news you will find that the queers will now use this case to "legalize" homo marriage.

[CobaltBlue]

OK, we'll put you down as one of those people who think it's immoral to wear a little rubber thingie on the end of your John Thomas, as Monty Python put it.

Thanks for sharing.

[CobaltBlue]

Oh, you know better Constitutional lawthan the Supreme Court? Great. Go to law school, become a judge, and get appointed to the bench, and you can change everything to suit yourself.

Or, you could just bitch about it.

[jde1953]

" The false report was filed by another homosexual. The whole thing was a con just so they could get this case before the court."

Your citation for this info, please? (The wording for my post came direct from the Supreme Court opinion's syllabus, in case you're wondering where I got my information.)

[colorado tanker]

I could not agree with you more concerning the need for the Bill of Rights to protect us against warrantless searches or searches without probable cause. The Framers were very careful and particular, however, about our privacy rights - they did not enshrine any general right to be let alone in the Constitution, and for good reason.

In hindsight, Griswold v. Connecticut was the camel's nose under the tent. It seemed so harmless. Connecticut had a boneheaded law against selling contraceptives. Why not find a right to marital privacy in the Constitution and strike a stupid law?

The reason why not is that now, a half century later, the Court has expanded the doctrine to where it sits as an unelected super-legislature on all laws relating to sex and morality. Not only that, but it believes it is entitled to write legislation or dictate to Congress how to draft legislation across vast subject areas.

This is not good for the long term health of our Republic. Respect for the law and judges diminishes year after year because they are no longer impartial arbiters of what the law says, but have become participants in the political process. So, they have little more respect than politicians. The real danger, however, is that because their decisions cannot be reviewed in the normal political process, they push people who disagree toward protest and violence. I submit that if abortion had been kept in the political process, as the Constitution clearly intends, we would not have seen the violence we've seen over the last 30 years. Activist courts are anti-democratic and endanger the future of our Republic.

BTW, I admire Judge Bork, regardless of his views on Griswold. In hindsight, losing the Bork nomination was probably a greater loss than losing the presidency in 1992. I think my view was more than born out by the results of this last SCOTUS term, very disappointing for conservatives.

[weegee]

The agenda will not end with their activities being legalized.

[ninenot]

Nor will it end with just the queers.