Posted on 06/26/2003 12:52:31 PM PDT by Polycarp
Losing the Culture War
Today's 6 to 3 Supreme Court decision striking down the Texas law banning sodomy is a disaster for the pro-family side of America's culture war. The Texas legislature passed the law in order to promote the institution of marriage and the family and argued that communities have a right to choose their own standards. Six Supreme Court Justices said that a "right to privacy" in the Constitution is grounds to overrule Texas and 13 other states with similar laws.
Justice Kennedy who wrote the majority opinion brought cheer to the radical homosexual rights movement by saying that men engaging in sodomy "are entitled to respect for their private lives." He added, "The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime." Really?
Consider the precedent the Court has now set. Every argument the six Justice majority used can be applied with equal force to strike down state laws against prostitution, bestiality, and every other form of adult sexual activity. Once the highest court of the land says that "privacy" outweighs the compelling interest a society has in promoting family, and reliable standards of right and wrong, there is no place to draw a line. Indeed, even the drug legalization crowd must be celebrating. If two adults want to use drugs in the privacy of their own bedroom isn't their "right to privacy" being violated by state laws prohibiting such behavior?
Justice Scalia wrote the dissenting opinion and was joined by Justices Thomas and Rehnquist. He could barely contain his outrage and chose to take the unusual step of reading the dissent out loud from the bench. He mocked the majority accusing them of taking sides in America's culture war and wondering why the majority was too cowardly to declare "a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy," since that is what the decision guarantees.
Depressed yet? Ponder this. Of the six Justice majority, four of the Justices - O'Connor, Souter, Kennedy and Stevens were appointed by Republican Presidents! The White House did not even bother to file a brief in the case, even though it was the President's own home State of Texas that was under attack.
So let's review the country that our federal courts have been constructing for us. It is a place where unborn children can be destroyed on a whim, a nation that requires parental permission for a tattoo, but not an abortion. It is a country where a copy of the Ten Commandments on the courthouse lawn is a threat to our liberty and the words "Under God" in our Pledge of Allegiance is a violation of the separation of Church and state. And soon it may be a place that allows men to marry men, effectively destroying 2000 years of Judeo-Christian tradition on the meaning of marriage.
For all of these reasons, and more, we cannot afford one more mistake in a Supreme Court appointment. The President, if there is a vacancy, must appoint a Scalia or a Thomas type of candidate, not another wimp ready to surrender to the social radicals. My friends we must fight back and the politicians we are electing must have the courage to help us.
TVC: Supreme Court Texas Sodomy Decision Is A Defeat For Public Morality And America's Families
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For more information, contact:
JUNE 26, 2003 April Waugh, 202-547-8570
Washington, DC - "Today's Supreme Court decision overturning a Texas law against homosexual sodomy is a defeat for public morality and America's families," said Traditional Values Coalition Chairman Rev. Louis P. Sheldon today. "This ill-conceived decision will have serious repercussions upon public health and welfare in Texas and other states that still criminalize sodomy."
Rev. Sheldon is responding to today's 6-3 decision in Lawrence v. The State of Texas. "The Court has ignored compelling evidence that shows that homosexual sodomy is a behavior that has serious health consequences not only to those engaging in this act, but to society as a whole. Millions of dollars are spent each year to deal with AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases contracted through homosexual sodomy. Yet the Court has elevated anal sex over the right of a state to protect its citizens from a serious public health crisis."
In his dissent, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia noted: "The Court has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda....The Court has taken sides in the culture war." Rev. Sheldon said: "I couldn't agree more with Justice Scalia. The Court has decided that anal sex trumps the duty of a state to protect the public morality and health of its citizens. Our culture will pay for this Court's dangerous decision."
The Traditional Values Coalition has published numerous reports on the dangers that homosexuality poses to the health, welfare, and children of our nation. The Homosexual Urban Legends series on TVC's web site details these dangers and myths surrounding sodomy.
TVC signed a Friend of the Court brief on Lawrence v. The State of Texas with the United States Justice Foundation. That brief is available here: Lawrence Brief.
Traditional Values Coalition is an inter-denominational public policy organization comprising over 43,000 member churches. For more information, call (202) 547-8570. TVC 139 C. Street SE, Washington, DC 20003. Web site address: www.traditionalvalues.org
FRC:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 26, 2003 CONTACT: Kristin Hansen, (202) 393-2100 FOR RADIO: Bill Murray
FRC Says Supreme Court Ruling Will Embolden Same-Sex Marriage Advocates
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Supreme Court today ruled 6-3 against the state of Texas striking down the state's homosexual sodomy law and thereby the sodomy laws of twelve other states.
Family Research Council President Ken Connor released the following statement in response to today's ruling in Lawrence v Texas:
"Once again judicial activists have used their fertile imagination to create rights that simply don't exist in the Constitution. In doing so, they have imposed their own moral judgments in place of state legislatures and have thereby undermined the democratic process. Unelected warriors wearing black robes become the chief architects of public policy.
"If the hallmarks of the test are consent and privacy, then that throws the door open to any sexual behavior. The radical homosexual lobby will seek to apply the logic, extending a blanket privacy protection over one's choice of sexual partner to one's choice of marital partner as well--regardless of sex.
"Private sexual acts have public consequences. The Court has ignored that fact and the right of states to enact laws in defense of public morals and public health.
"As Justice Scalia points out in his dissent and as Sen. Rick Santorum(R-PA) pointed out in his analysis of this case a month ago, every state law that is based on moral grounds is now called into question based on this ruling."
-- 30 --
View this Press Release online at: http://www.frc.org?i=PR03F11 -------------------------------------------- Log Cabin Republicans:
LOG CABIN REPUBLICANS APPLAUD SUPREME COURT DECISION LCR/LEF FILED AMICUS BRIEF IN THIS MATTER
(WASHINGTON) - The Log Cabin Republicans, and its sister organization the Liberty Education Forum, applaud the historic decision today by the United States Supreme Court overturning the Texas sodomy statute by a vote of 6-3.
Patrick Guerriero, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans and president of the Liberty Education Forum said, "Today's historic victory marks a new chapter for gay and lesbian civil rights in America. We are one step closer to realizing fairness and equality for gay and lesbian members of the American family. Log Cabin and the Liberty Education Forum were proud to offer a Republican and centrist argument in favor of the overturning of these un-American laws in our amicus brief."
The case involved John Lawrence and Tyron Garner, who were arrested in Lawrence's Houston home and jailed overnight after officers, responding to a false police report found the men engaged in private, consensual sex. Once convicted of violating the Texas law against sodomy, they were forced to pay fines and are now considered sex offenders in several states. Texas's law and others like it are widely used to justify discrimination against gay people in everyday life; they're invoked in denying employment to gay people, in refusing custody or visitation for gay parents, and even in intimidating gay people out of exercising their First Amendment rights.
"This is a fair-minded and historic decision that impacts gays and lesbians in all 50 states. This ruling makes clear what we have known all along, the conduct that is legal for some people should not be illegal for gay Americans," said Guerriero.
"The enormous importance of this law being overturned is that it will not only provide protection for the few who find themselves prosecuted for consensual intimacy but that it also provides protection for those who face discrimination that has been justified by these laws," Guerriero added.
"Great credit must also be given to Lambda Legal, their tenacious efforts for fairness and equality have resulted in this landmark ruling," concluded Guerriero.
Log Cabin Republicans is the nation's largest gay Republican organization, with state and local chapters nationwide, a full-time Washington office and a federal political action committee.
Liberty Education Forum is a centrist think tank in Washington that offers new perspectives on gay and lesbian issues. _________________________
NEWS LINKS
Log Cabin statement http://www.lcrga.com/archive/200306261130.shtml
Log Cabin and Liberty Education Forum amicus brief http://www.lcr.org/press/20030108.asp
The same "constitutional right" that was the basis of Roe v. Wade.
As an attorney for the ACLU Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg co-authored a report recommending that the age of consent for sexual acts be lowered to 12 years of age ("Sex Bias in the U.S. Code," Report for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, April 1977, p. 102).
The paragraph reads as follows: "Eliminate the phrase "carnal knowledge of any female, not his wife, who has not attained the age of 16 years" and substitute a federal, sex-neutral definition of the offense.... A person is guilty of an offense if he engages in a sexual act with another person.... [and] the other person is, in fact, less than 12 years old..)"
The degenerate filth has won a decision that is going to encourage them to bash down every last cultural norm or barrier.
They won't be happy, and they won't stop, until they can have legally have sex with children and no one can stop them.
This country better wake the hell up to what's happening around them. We are losing this country, and we're losing it fast. In twenty-five years it will bear no resemblence to anything any of us will recognize, if we don't.
The feds get more power, the court gets more power.
The "living constitution" crowd is ecstatic over this ruling.
Today, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution protects the liberty of homosexual persons to engage in "intimate conduct" in accordance with their personal preferences. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy effectively demolished the Court's precedent from Bowers v. Hardwick, expressly overruling it and its holding that states could regulate the conduct of homosexual persons.
What does this mean for the current law banning gays in the military?
That ban exists as a matter of federal law -- 10 U.S.C. 654 -- and presumably can be overruled by a decision of the Supreme Court. I think that one of the first effects of Lawrence will be to trigger a challenge in U.S. District Court to the current policy banning gays in the military. That challenge will essentially cite Lawrence for the proposition that homosexual conduct is a fundamental right that the state cannot burden without some compelling interest -- and that the restrictions must be narrowly tailored to that compelling interest. The plaintiffs will argue that this policy (the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy) burdens the right of gay soldiers to engage in the conduct they want to, and that such a burden on a fundamental right is unconstitutional. Given the Court's holding today in Lawrence, I think that a lower court would almost certainly side with the plaintiffs.
The only possible savior for the military's ban will be the "national security" deference sometimes given to the Executive Branch and the military by the courts. In recent cases, such as challenges to President Bush's war on Iraq, the courts have expressly deferred to executive judgment on military matters, and left such issues to be decided by the political branches. Such "national security" deference was also invoked by the Supreme Court in Korematsu v. United States, where the Court upheld the detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
However, I don't think such deference will save the ban on gays in the ranks. The Court has held in religious freedom cases that the military can curtail certain personal freedoms, such as the right of Jews to wear certain religious garb. However, this is different. This ban places much more of a burden on the rights of gays than the military's uniform policies do, and this ban has a much more drastic effect (automatic discharge). After reading the Court's opinion in Lawrence, I think it's likely that this ban will be struck down as unconstitutional.
posted by Phillip at 8:21 AM
http://philcarter.blogspot.com/2003_06_22_philcarter_archive.html#105664089655662077
That's not the point; as far as I know, nothing in the Constitution confers or supports a right to homosexual sex. I would oppose a sodomy law in my own state...democratically.
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