[Polycarp]

This is gravely serious, folks.

[Always Right]

If the Supreme Court finds the amendment unconstitutional -- which, thanks to Lawrence, they now claim the right to do -- then we're sunk.

How can the Supreme Court can find a Constitutional Amendment unconstitutional? That makes no sense at all.

[sinkspur]

If the Supreme Court finds the amendment unconstitutional -- which, thanks to Lawrence, they now claim the right to do -- then we're sunk.

The Supreme Court can not overturn a Constitutional Amendment.

[Ahban]

don't expect W to help you on this one. he is one the wrong side. Personnel is policy. We can get worked up over issue after issue, but we will keep losing if we don't elevate the right PEOPLE to office. That no longer includes most Republicans.

www.constitutionparty.com

[LarryM]

The Supreme Court can't invalidate a Constitutional amendment.

[VOA]

Is Lawrence Worse Than Roe?

Both are terrible.

And as much as I have serious trepidation about suspending the statute of
limitations on any crime, about the only things I can think about the US Supreme Court
is this:

1. You have the right to slice, dice, and Julienne-fry any "non-viable tissue mass"
as long as it hasn't fully exited the birth canal before being "terminated".

2. You have the right to anything you want with any orifice or appendage of the
body as long as everyone involved is over legal age and doesn't call the cops.

3. If you molest children...be sure to lay low until the statute of limitation runs.
(I about screamed today to see the angelic smile on the face of Father Wempe here
in California, realizing that his confederates on the US Supreme Court were going
to make sure he never faced scrutiny (and the justice he probably deserves) for his
relationships to little boys.

Former Governor Frank Keating was right to attribute qualities of La Costra Nostra
to the pedophile conspirators/enablers of his church...now I wonder if the conspiracy
has spread to the guys in the robes in Washington, D.C.

The silver lining?
Democrats/Liberals/Libertines don't anything to gripe about.
Most of Dubya's constituency have now been mobilized...the left has
foolishly never learned to check to see if a big doy is securing chained before
laughinly prodding with a stick.

[tdadams]

I'm not surprised to you see posting this hysteria.

How many people are going to jump on board and parrot this ridiculous line that there is no right to privacy in the Constitution. News flash, neither the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights was ever intended to be an exhaustive enumeration of a person's rights. Can we all agree on this?

Secondly, following Bowers v. Hardwick, eleven states abolished their anti-sodomy laws. So far we've not seen an alarming rise in the incidence of bestiality and incest in those states. Let's relax, OK?

Does anyone think that any homosexuals out there chose to abstain from their preferred sexual practices due to these laws being in place anyway?

Even proponents of anti-sodomy laws admit ther were rarely if ever enforced. That tells me that they weren't intended to uphold personal morality so much as they were to persecute a disfavored minority.

I've looked out my window the last couple of days. The sun is still rising and setting as usual. Relax.

[cherrycapital]

Don't you Bible-beaters have something better to do than worry about other people's sex lives?

[cherrycapital]

I disagree with the whole substantive due process reasoning, by the way, for the same reasons mentioned by the article. However, I would've reached the same result (upholding a right to privacy) as one of the 9th Amendment's unenumerated rights (this was Justice Goldberg's position in Griswold v. Connecticut, but the 14th Amendment faction won out by the time of Roe.)

[Van Jenerette]

Hmmm...Can universities and schools make or enforce rules aimed to prevent consensual sexual relations between teachers and non-minor students if it is done in the 'privacy' of a hotel or home?

By this ruling doesn't ALL ADULT CONSENSENUAL SEX with other consenting ADULTS become protected private behavior?

[bvw]

Even this warning is too limited. The theory the Justices applied doesn't stop at sex, doesn't even stop at privacy. AS of the time Thursday this rulling came out, we are officially an anarchy. Every single Judge can make whatever ruling pleases him, no according to rule, precedent, morality, common standards, etc.

[aristeides]

The LAST HOPE for defeating homosexual marriage lies in a Constitutional amendment that explicitly defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The Alliance for Marriage, headed up by Matt Daniels, is leading the way in calling for the Federal Marriage Amendment to do just that.

And such an amendment would do more than end the prospect of homosexual marriage. It would represent the repudiation of the so-called thinking in the Lawrence decision and might persuade the Supreme Court to cabin the implications of Lawrence to what that decision was ostensibly about, striking down sodomy laws. Limon yesterday showed that the Supreme Court presently has no such intention. Quite the contrary.

[bart99]

No one responded earlier, so I'll try again.

Does this ruling in effect make prostitution (among adults) legal?

[LibKill]

Which is worse?

Roe has certainly killed more people, but the Lawrence ruling is only a couple of days old.

[Brices Crossroads]

"If the Supreme Court finds the Amendment unconstitutional"

Several of the posters have already made the "astute" observation that the Supreme Court cannot find an Amendment unconstitutional. While this is true as a matter of law (de jure), it is untrue as a matter of fact(de facto). The Supreme Court has rendered several amendments, notably the Tenth, virtually meaningless. While they would have trouble invalidating a a narrowly drawn amendment, it is far from impossible for an activist court to render it meaningless.

That said, while I am very sympathetic to the thrust of the proposed Amendment, I do not believe that marriage is, or should be, a federal issue. Most such Amendments conclude with: "Congress shall have the power to enforce this Amendment by appropriate legislation." Turning Congress loose on the institution of marriage gives me a decidedly queasy feeling.

[Schuck]

A contrarian view...

While I agree this case was wrongly decided (see Justice Scalia's excellent dissent), I'm not sure we are headed down the slippery slope.

Years ago, the Court ruled that illegal immigrant children had to be allowed to attend public school. (I'm too lazy to look up the case name or cite, think it was a Texas case). Everyone predicted that was it, it was just a matter of litigation until illegals had every right that citizens have. Didn't happen. While there may be one or two more exceptions, the Court has refused several times to extend other constitutional rights to illegals - that's why we can have "military tribunals" for terrorists, for example.

Why only the right to attend school? My theory is that the Justices let their desire to be charitable and offer a hand up trump the Constitution, and issued sort of a "one-time" exception. Legislating from the bench? Yes. Wrong? In my opinion, yes. But understandable - I think the thought of kicking poor children out of school onto the streets would give even the most hardened conservative pause.

Flash forward to Lawrence. The Texas law was archaic and, in Justice Thomas' words, "silly." The Legislature should have repealed it years ago, it was an invitation to discriminatory enforcement. It needed to go. So the Justices bent the Constituion this one time. I suspect when the issue is gay marriage (or polygamy or drug use or euthanasia) the Court will find an excuse to back-pedal away from their reasoning and let this decision stand as a one-time freak.

[P-Marlowe]

I am an attorney and I have studied the Roe decision and read every word of it several times. The Roe decision was bad. It set a very bad precedent.

I have read this decision. There is language in this decision that essentially takes away the power of the states as well as congress to pass reasonable laws and puts the power in the hands of the Courts to overrule any law they wish by claiming that because the courts do not agree with that law, that it has no "rational basis" for being passed and is therefore unconstitutional.

This decision has wide rangning implications. First of all, I don't see how laws against prostitution or adult incest or polygamy or even drugs can withstand the courts ruling on the issue of "privacy." Further anytime there is a law that reflects religious traditions, the courts now have a new tool (other than the so-called "separation" clause) to attack it; they can merely claim that the law in question encroaches upon someome's right to privacy or some other dreamed up right and then note that since it was passed for an "irrational reason" -- i.e., it promotes someone's irrational religious beliefs (and of course all religious beliefs are irrational in the court's eyes), it is therefore unconstitutional.

The courts have stolen the constitutional legislative power from the states and from the people. We are now effectively ruled by an appointed aristocracy of nine overly-educated snobs with law degrees who think they know better than you.

If that is not a dangerous situation, then I don't know what is.

America (as we know it) died the day this decision was published. Read it. It is a manifesto for Judicial tyranny. Then weep.

[NYer]

The court no longer has any principled basis for upholding laws that prohibit incest, bigamy, bestiality, you name it.

Perhaps this explains the TOTAL SILENCE emanating from the USCCB. In a sense, the Supreme Court has unwittingly nullified the sexual abuse cases pending against various dioceses across the US. Mahony and Co. must be enjoying this moment. God help us all.

[Buck W.]

Logically, legalizing gay marriage would then lead to the acceptance and legalization of human/gerbil marriage.

[Courier]

How can any conservative argue against a right to privacy.

How does anyone go from the right of people to have consensual sex to legal gay marriage is beyond me.

Marriage is not private. It has public ramification. From the license to tax laws.

So sure a couple of gays can consider themselves married, call themselves married if they wish, but their right to the privacy of their sex lives doesn't extend to the State recognizing their relationship as marriage.

This right to privacy was first enunciated in Griswald, where the State of Connecticut had laws against married people using contraceptives. Would you have voted any other way? Do you not believe you have an absolute privacy right to contraceptives if you so wish? By the way, the author here is wrong. The privacy right was found to be an "unenumerated right" not necessarily derived from the 14th.

I'm probably out there on this board, but I believe for an American the right to privacy is one that should be cherished and extended.

Where this law should lead is to abolishing consensual prostitution laws. Even some drug laws should be abolished. Even if it makes some uneasy there is no right for the State to intrude into such activities as long as they are in actuality and practice both private and consensual.

But, what I really want abolished, what I believe is an intrusion into my privacy is seat belt laws. I believe I have a privacy right not to wear the damn seat belts if I don't want to. My not wearing seat belts harms no one, except potentially myself, and the State has no right to intrude.