Losing the Culture War; Texas Sodomy DecisionA Defeat For Morality And America's Families

Various | Various

[My2Cents]

Six Supreme Court Justices said that a "right to privacy" in the Constitution is grounds to overrule Texas

The same "constitutional right" that was the basis of Roe v. Wade.

[AppyPappy]

I think it means the public parks will be filled with men trolling for a good time. And we will be powerless to stop them.

[Polycarp]

Lock up your kids and load your guns: the only taboo left is pedophilia. Remember the words of a current member of SCOTUS, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

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..)"

[Im Your Huckleberry]

Lock up your gerbels.

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.

[longtermmemmory]

not quite I believe, read the disent in the texas case. They went through legal hoops to get to the privacy right in roe. Here is was just a "feeling" ruling. It was a decision by fiat.

[My2Cents]

So it's worse than "Roe."

[mrsmith]

The states must meet a standard of compelling interest to make any law. That is just an amazing assertion to be made by 6 justices, even of this court.

The feds get more power, the court gets more power.

The "living constitution" crowd is ecstatic over this ruling.

[sheik yerbouty]

Years ago, I knew a guy who worked vice, and really hated it. He had a unique way of dealing with the problem. When some perv would push his johnson through one of the many holes in the bathroom stall, he would lovingly caress it with the tip of his lit cigar. He said that consequently there was a dimunition of such activities.

[Van Jenerette]

...for later reading after class.

[AppyPappy]

There is a website that details where men can find anonymous partners in bathroom stalls and other public places. It was great for learning places to avoid. I have lost the site address.

[sheik yerbouty]

That is something I can live without.

[thinktwice]

Moses ran into the same thing ... right after doing all that work carving commandments in stone.

[Lorianne]

Exactly. Public indecency laws and statuatory rape laws are different matters entirely than consenting PRIVATE acts between ADULTS.

[aristeides]

What will the Supreme Court's decision mean for the military?

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

[mvpel]

What, you don't have loitering laws, public lewdness laws, or sexual harassment laws where you live?

[AppyPappy]

Neither of those would apply. A policeman would have to see them to charge them. At least now they can get them for solicitation.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

You're all a little hysterical. The ruling does not legitimate public sex, or pedophilia, it only strikes anti-sodomy laws where they pertain to private, consenual acts between adults. Personally I do not want the government in my bedroom or in my house, and I don't care what my neighbors do in the privacy of their own home. It is their business

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.

[roderick]

I respect your Libertarian position and personally think that anti-sodomy laws are just this side of silly.

Still, are we not supposed to be a self-governing people? SCOTUS should stop confusing "bad" or silly law with violations of our formerly great Constitution.

This decision was another step toward tyranny.