Sodomy in the Age of Oprah

The American Spectator ^ | 6/27/2003 | George Neumayr

[protest1]

Sodomy in the Age of Oprah By George Neumayr Published 6/27/2003

Supreme Court decisions increasingly read like transcripts from the Oprah Winfrey show. Justice Antonin Scalia notes the court's "famed sweet-mystery-of-life" howler: "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and the mystery of human life."

Thursday's Supreme Court decision announcing a recently discovered inalienable right to sodomy contained a few more: "When sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring." Sodomy is a very high-minded business, according to the court, part of the lofty "liberty protected by the Constitution." Such is its preciousness that states can't be trusted to regulate it.

That sodomy is an inalienable right would no doubt come as a big surprise to the Constitution's framers. They are, of course, the last constitutional experts the Supreme Court would ever consult. The Supreme Court, judging from the majority opinion's slavish attention to Europe's regard for sodomy, is much more interested in the thoughts of modern Danes than dead Americans.

The framers didn't approach sodomy with the same level of awe as today's court. What the Kennedys and Souters call "liberty," the framers called "license," the abandonment to acts high in the catalogue of sin that spells the end of republics.

The majority on the Supreme Court declares that anti-sodomy laws compromise the "dignity" of homosexuals. The framers would reverse the judgment: it is sodomy that compromises their dignity, and it is the rule of law which points to and protects that dignity. The framers belonged to communities that passed such laws so as to safeguard a moral culture in which human dignity is possible.

The framers would say that the assault to dignity comes from a legal culture that sanctions sodomy, a culture that turns children over to homosexual couples, a culture that places homosexual relationships on the same level of sanctity as the traditional family.

The Supreme Court says anti-sodomy laws "demean" people. The framers thought those laws would discourage people from demeaning each other through the slavery of sin. It would befuddle the framers greatly to hear sodomy and dignity in the same sentence. They held that the dignity of democracy depended on citizens governing themselves according to moral standards, not according to a respect for each other's basest instincts. If citizens couldn't govern their own dark passions, how long would a democracy that relies on their capacity for self-government last? This concern made anti-sodomy laws eminently sensible to the framers.

But now, in our vast modern wisdom, we know better. What quaint fools the framers were. They thought society would teeter if vice had rights over virtue. We are doing just fine. They thought -- can you believe it? -- that such consensual acts as adult incest were wrong. Now we know that "it can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring."

Apparently any sexual relationship, with man or beast, is constitutionally permissible, provided that the parties to the personal bond give consent. Since animals can't give proper consent, perhaps the court will let certain uptight communities outlaw bestiality. We'll see. On the other hand, the "sweet-mystery-of-life passage" Scalia cites gives practitioners of bestiality a pretty strong defense. If the passage has any meaning, as Scalia says, it will be the passage that "ate the rule of law."

Needless to say, we are not doing fine. We are losing real liberties while the Supreme Court invents bogus ones. To deprive a community of the liberty of preserving traditional laws is a monstrous distortion of the framers' work and an act of judicial despotism which should outrage the public.

License won for homosexual activists is liberty lost for communities and families. As America hurtles past homosexual adoption toward homosexual marriage, who but the obtuse can deny this?

[protest1]

Justice Antonin Scalia notes the court's "famed sweet-mystery-of-life" howler: "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and the mystery of human life."

2Thessalonians 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; 4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

[elbucko]

We are losing real liberties while the Supreme Court invents bogus ones.

This is true, profound and a tragedy.

[Bonaparte]

LOLOL! Dignity for degenerates? Let nobody say Justice Scalia does not have a sense of humor.

[fortcollins]

What about consensual pedophilia or incest in the privacy of one's home? Does privacy trump everything?

[DaBroasta]

The majority on the Supreme Court declares that anti-sodomy laws compromise the "dignity" of homosexuals.

I just don't understand the "dignity" behind anal intercourse. Is it this "dignity" that separates us from animals--at least for now.

[Bonaparte]

It's a strange way to reason. The mere act of patting a suspect down, of cuffing and arresting him, of booking and incarcerating him, of subjecting him to close observation and regimentation in prison -- all of these are hardly calculated to boost his sense of "dignity." Should they, for that reason, be abolished? Scalia seems to think so.

[mc5cents]

The mere act of patting a suspect down, of cuffing and arresting him, of booking and incarcerating him, of subjecting him to close observation and regimentation in prison -- all of these are hardly calculated to boost his sense of "dignity." Should they, for that reason, be abolished? Scalia seems to think so.

???? Where did you find that in Scalia's argument?

[niteowl77]

Yesterday I had to go in for a physical exam, and being well past my "over the hill" mark, that means something called a prostate exam.

(Prostate exams are apparently wildly funny to younger co-workers who have never had one, but I merely smile and bide my time.)

Anywhoo, the experience did accomplish at least two* things: it determined that I have less to worry about than I might, and convinced me that the term "transcendent" should be absent from any court ruling that concerns sodomy.

*Okay, I lied- it accomplished three things- I have also resolved to find a petite lady MD with very delicate hands.

[DaBroasta]

I have also resolved to find a petite lady MD with very delicate hands.

I hear ya kid. My last prostate exam experience convinced me that I'll always be an 'exit-only' guy.

[protest1]

I can think of words more apt to be part of a sentence about sodomy but dignity aint one of them!!!

"Excrement" would be one.. Yeeeukkk .

Matthew 15:14 ... they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

[Wolfstar]

To deprive a community of the liberty of preserving traditional laws is a monstrous distortion of the framers' work and an act of judicial despotism which should outrage the public.

This is a most profound, succinct assessment of just how devastating a ruling this is, and the whole article is excellent. The rulings that came down from the court this week are deeply discouraging — all the more so because I don't see anyway back from the path the court has set us on.

[Bonaparte]

It's a logical extension of the "dignity" argument that is being advanced here. Judges will forever seek to get around their own logical inconsistencies by introducing the concept of "compelling interest" when they want to go along with majority interests -- or the concept of "tyranny of the majority" when they want to support the interests of a small group. These devices permit them to justify virtually any opinion they wish to render, even one that directly undermines the moral order upon which all else in a free society depends. Many are those who fail to recognize that only a moral people are fit for freedom.

[Bahbah]

"We need a second American revolution!"

Right.

[lizma]

Just out of curiosity, legally were does our right to privacy come from?

[Bonaparte]

Take heart, Wolfstar. The court has dramatically reversed itself on more than one occasion. Remember when it decided that the death penalty was "cruel and unusual" -- then completely reversed themselves a few years later? What changed? Well, the heinousness of murder and murderers didn't change. The fact that execution ends a life? That hadn't changed either. What changed was the mood of the court.

Back when FDR wanted to turn a constitutional republic into a socialist welfare state, the SC resisted him -- for awhile. Then one justice, Owen Roberts, suddenly decided to support his desire to abolish our constitutional republic. What changed? Nothing but the mood of a single Justice on that court.

What it comes down to is this: Rule of Law is a concept central to the survival of a free society, but it is also remarkably inconvenient to men with an agenda. And sometimes the call of personal convenience is just too much temptation to resist, even for a SC justice.

[StriperSniper]

It's a logical extension of the "dignity" argument that is being advanced here.

Scalia was on the dissenting side. He layed down a warning in a mocking, scathing dissent. Everything he warned could happen, already has started.

[Bonaparte]

Which "legal right to privacy" are you referring to? State and local laws against offenders such as peeping toms? Those are primarily laws against trepass on private property. If the same offense is committed with, say, field glasses from a distance, it is no longer a crime. Are you perhaps thinking of 4th Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure? Well-established concepts like "probable cause" and "reasonable suspicion," supported by court warrant, overcome objections arising from the 4th. So it puzzles me which "right to privacy" so many, including jurists, are so enamored of.

[Bonaparte]

Thanks for the timely correction, SS. I got pretty lazy here and failed to read carefully. I should have known Scalia dissented. My bad.

[Cicero]

Speaking of the difference between license and liberty, I think Milton's Sonnet 12, which concerns the excesses of the Puritan Revolution, is very much to the point:

I did but prompt the age to quit their cloggs
By the known rules of antient libertie,
When strait a barbarous noise environs me
Of Owles and Cuckoes, Asses, Apes and Doggs.
As when those Hinds that were transform'd to Froggs
Raild at Latona's twin-born progenie
Which after held the Sun and Moon in fee.
But this is got by casting Pearl to Hoggs;
That bawle for freedom in their senceless mood,
And still revolt when truth would set them free.
Licence they mean when they cry libertie;
For who loves that, must first be wise and good;
But from that mark how far they roave we see
For all this wast of wealth, and loss of blood.