Posted on 06/27/2003 2:19:02 AM PDT by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - Hours after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas sodomy statute, homosexual activists proclaimed their next target would be to overturn a host of laws they view as discriminatory, including those that limit marriage to opposite-sex couples.
Even before the court's 6-3 ruling extended privacy rights to homosexuals, conservatives and pro-family advocates warned that such a decision would lead to an erosion of traditional values. Now, they said, it is even more important to fight back.
"This is a major wake-up call," said the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition. "This is a 9/11, major wake-up call that the enemy is at our doorsteps."
Sheldon predicted that laws prohibiting same-sex marriage would be one of the first targets, followed by efforts to spread the homosexual message to public schools and force the business community to hire a sexually diverse workforce.
"This decision will open a floodgate," Sheldon said. "This will redirect the stream of what is morally right and what is morally wrong into a deviant kind of behavior. There is no way that homosexuality can be seen other than a social disorder."
For the legal team that convinced the Supreme Court to reverse its 17-year-old decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, Thursday's ruling was a long-awaited and much-welcomed relief. Homosexuals and their supporters celebrated the ruling in 35 cities Thursday night.
Among the 13 states with sodomy statutes before Thursday, only four singled out homosexuals, including the now-defunct Texas law. The two men arrested for having sex, John G. Lawrence and Tyron Garner, were caught in the act after a neighbor filed a false report that an armed man was "going crazy" inside Lawrence's apartment. The 1998 incident worked its way to the Supreme Court.
Now that the court has ruled that these sodomy laws are unconstitutional, homosexuals are prepared to eliminate other forms of discrimination, said Ruth Harlow, lead attorney for Lawrence and Garner and legal director at the homosexual advocacy group, Lambda Legal.
Harlow said discrimination in marriage laws and by the U.S. military would be two of their targets.
"By knocking out both sodomy laws and the justification of morality, this decision makes it much harder to defend those discriminatory schemes," she said. "The actual answer for those issues will be saved for another day."
Even though the decision was based on the right to privacy and not equal protection under the law, Harlow still called it a resounding victory. She said it "very strongly recognizes gay people's equal humanity" and guarantees homosexuals the equal rights under the Constitution.
While disappointed by the decision, Tom Minnery, vice president of public policy for Focus on the Family, said the fact that the court relied on privacy might be the "silver lining" for conservatives.
"The court based all of its decision on the right of privacy," he said. "It did not find a fundamental right for homosexuals to commit homosexual acts. We feared they would find that, and they did not. It's the same flimsy principle they used to decide abortion is constitutional."
Still, there are threats to traditional family values as a result of the ruling, said Robert Knight, director of Concerned Women for America's Culture & Family Institute.
"Expanding the right of privacy indefinitely will lead to a challenge of marriage," he said. "It will jeopardize all the other sex-based laws, everything pertaining to incest, bigamy and prostitution. There really is no logical stopping point.
"They have given away the premise that a community can govern itself and set up a moral foundation for how people live," he added. "It's really a sweeping and radical decision."
Some conservatives said it was especially disappointing that Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, one of President Ronald Reagan's appointees, wrote the decision. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, another Reagan appointee, filed a separate concurring opinion.
"This case today, I think, provides a prime example of the court rewriting the law based on their own understanding of the prevailing winds of cultural fashion rather than actual precedent in the Constitution or the law," said Peter Sprigg, director of the Family Research Council's Center for Marriage and Family Studies.
Conservatives pointed to Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent as one of the lone highlights. In it, Scalia warned that the court's reasoning "leaves on pretty shaky grounds state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples."
Harlow said Scalia was out of touch with most Americans. She also said people with strong Christian views are outnumbered by a majority of Americans who opposed these sodomy laws.
"They are more and more being pushed to the sidelines," she said. "We don't have any problems with individuals making their own choices and having their own religious views. But in our country, a minority of individuals cannot dictate those views for the whole country."
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Wrongo, buddy. Sodomy is a public health issue, and, as such, falls under the jurisdiction of the government.
You ever hear of a little malady called AIDS? Sodomy played a MAJOR role in its wide spread, and the trouser jockeys who volunteered for this disease lead the world in its disgusting practice.
Let them explain to the young children who are there why this is to be accepted as normal, just like mommy and daddy except that it's not the same. It never, never, never will be the same as their mommy and daddy. It will look, seem and be abnormal even to little children because there is that little voice within them that tells them it's not normal or acceptable.
These morons who make these decisions can decide for the next 10,000 years why it should be acceptable, by the little voice within us tells us the it is not. Always has and always will.
So make whatever decisions you want, what you can not do is make people accept what is not and never will be acceptable.
The day that the Lord accepts homosexual behavior as being acceptable in His eyes will be the day that I too accept it. I however doubt that I will ever see that day in my lifetime.
To wit:
Leviticus 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
I need to ask a question. But before I do, let me say that I'm a straight, young, conservative... (not that any of that should matter but I am sure it will come up)
After reading some posts on this board it seems as though some of you are scared of gays. My opinion follows. Who cares if they marry? Who cares if they have sex? I've never befriended a gay person and I probably never will. I don't think it has anything to do with subconcious bigotry...I just don't have anything in common with them. How does it affect you if a gay person gets married?
Thanks, I had to ask.
You mean 5-10 months, don't you?
Next month the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court will legalize (they may be amusing enough to quote Mr. Justice Kennedy in their ruling-now wouldn't that be cunning?)
After that, the first emergency appeal to the USSC for a state violating the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution by nonrecognition of a Massachusetts gay marriage won't take six weeks. Listen to Mr. Justice Kennedy, for the Court, and tell me how they will rule on that appeal:
"These references show an emerging awareness that liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex"
Don't you get it? This is exactly what gay activists are trying to destroy. If gay marriage is legal, how in the world do you expect to keep gays from adopting children?
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