Is Lawrence Worse Than Roe?

CRISIS Magazine - e-Letter ^ | 6/27/03 | Deal Hudson

[Courier]

Is there a lot of incest going on? I don't remember ever hearing about adults charged with incest.

If kids are involved, this ruling is not applicable, as it's not consensual privacy.

Does anyone believe that even if this could be applied to incest, consensual adult incest would become a problem.

Really there is nothing to get excited about. The dirty legal secret of the Supreme Court is that nothing is absolute. There is no such thing as strict construction from any Justice, ever. It's really impossible to "strict construct" 18th Century intent into modern times. The Court form opinions that mirror the times.

That is why with both this decision and Roe, private, out of sight, consensual prostitution laws should be easily unconstitutional, but they won't be. The Court will find a rationale for the laws, because the American public will not now accept such acts being legal. The Court's decisions are full of hypocrisy.

[AmishDude]

Now that copulation is a Constitutional right,

Technically, I believe that, at the present time, only same-sex sodomy is a constitutional right.

[BlazingArizona]

Well thats my 2 cents, you can all return to your hate orgy now. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

The division between those who want to control the lives of others and those who want maximum freedom for all is totally distinct from, and more fundamental than, the difference between the left and the right.

[Courier]

I wasn't aware that his victims consented to be murdered? On FreeRepublic you learn something new everyday?

[sinkspur]

I'd be more than happy to engage you in debate on whether or not homosexual rape is deserving of harsher penalties.

Did you change your mind? Last night, I understood you to say it wasn't.

[jwalsh07]

Adams, you are a dishonest fellow and should we meet a the freeper ball in DC, I'd be happy to tell you that to your face.

The person in questions handle is Chemist_Geek. I refer to you as adams. Is your last name an epithet as well.

Not only are you constitutionally illiterate, you are vocabulary challeneged as well.

Try again dingbat.

[shred]

This was a very sensible, conservative, anti- big government decision.

Now the government cannot, for all of time, ever come into anyone's bedroom and arrest them for consensual private sexual activity.

If you big government loving theocratic crusaders are this upset about it, it means it probably was a truly *great* decision.

shred

[stop_fascism]

I never heard them say they didn't. <;-).

[jwalsh07]

You misunderstood. But lets start here.

ZGo down to your local junior high school and survey the male students. Ask them which would be more traumatic, being raped by a woman or by a man.

[tdadams]

On the basis of this presumptive allegation, I hold that the propietors of the barnyard sex sites want to expand markets and increase market share.

How can you be so sure they're not simply aficianados who like to trade their wares? Ask any cop who works on kiddie porn cases. Nearly all of it is freely traded by aficianados.

[mrsmith]

"You have to wonder if incest cannot be outlawed after this ruling. "

That topic arouses much hyperbole from both sides, but- they certainly have claimed the power to rule one way or some other on the issue.

On the other controversial topic of minors' sexual rights, at most I expect the Supreme Court to just demand those laws be uniform throughout the states- for now. From this ruling they will apparently be made uniform with those in Europe- unless Africa or Asia or some other region is in vogue with the law school community when a case comes before them.

[Jhoffa_]

How can you be so sure they're not simply aficianados who like to trade their wares?

39,000, non-profit, animal sex websites..

?

(Thirty Nine Thousand... )

[Polycarp]

You certainly are presumptuous

IF that is the case, then you are in a very small percentage of the folks who imbibe your libertarian views here. The vast majority of folks have never heard of Griswold.

along with short tempered today

Cranky would be a better word. I don't suffer all the fools here who call themselves "conservatives" very well.

[tdadams]

And suppose this ongoing bit of hand wringing has sapped you of any sense of humor too.

[sinkspur]

Go down to your local junior high school and survey the male students. Ask them which would be more traumatic, being raped by a woman or by a man.

They'd say the man. That would be homosexual rape.

The girls,however, would also say the man, and that would be heterosexual rape.

There is no rationale in law to decide that one is more traumatic than the other.

[Torie]

You are right on this one John. Somehow, all of these decisions are too much for folks to handle, and common sense seems to have been attenuated by it all. But getting into an argument where the dice are so loaded in your favor, is really not very sportsmanlike.

[Question_Assumptions]

For the record, I agree with moral and non-legal philisophical elements of Lawrence and Griswold but not with Roe. But one needs to seperate the ends from the means because the means in all of these cases are awful and damaging. We are at the point where people are forced to decide which presidential candidate they want to vote for based on the judges they will appoint. Forget the amendment process. Forget laws. If you want something, grab some lawyers and run to the men and women in black robes and hope you get lucky. The law should not be so random and in the hands of so few.

See this article for some interesting observations by one of Justice Blackmun's pro-Roe clerks about how harmful Roe is.

[stop_fascism]

Isn't that beside the point. The citizens of the state, operating through their legislature, decided that one was worse than the other. Shouldn't they be able to make that determination?

[AnnaZ]

Matthew 5:22

That was the first thing that popped into my mind as well. I catch myself often with it, but not as often as I should. (What is that strange burning sensation?)

[Torie]

Well, then Limon is not really the right vehicle is it to apply the Sinkspur doctrine, because the case involved male on male. Upholding the sentence while noting that the law is unconstittional to the extent it lacks a rational basis for having a harsher sentence for lesbian rape, would be mere dictum.