[madprof98]

If we are indeed engaged in a culture war, Scalia's side is losing and he knows it. In his desperation, he and others wish to enlist the power of government as a weapon to repress a minority he despises.

The AJC--like most major newspapers--provides almost ceaseless propaganda for one side of the culture war. (Bookman's piece, for example, is accompanied by an op-ed deploring Christian teaching against homosexuality because it makes young gay men feel bad.) I wonder why they fight so hard if they're so sure they're winning?

[Servant of the Nine]

Scalia, of course, disagreed. He rejected the contention that there is a constitutional right to privacy.

And he is right.
I think there should be a Right to Privacy, but the way to insure it is by ammending the Constitution, not by inventing a nonexistant right.

I think the only reason a Right to Privacy is not currently in the Constitution is that it was inconceivable to the founders that any Govt. would even consider infringing it.

So9

[freeangel]

Bookman is ALWAYS scary.

[Mr. K]

geez... the tortured language and interpretations these idiot liberals use to put down ANY conserveative.

Scalia is right- and that fact that this moron doesn't like what he said convinces me more

[Puddleglum]

I believe that if it's not explicitly stated in the Constitution, then it is left to the other branches of government - the people - to negotiate. If they chose not to comment on it one way or the other, that's great and actually preferable. But if they pass a law, one can't always say that the Constitution trumps it and that it's one of the "rights" implied but not expressed by the Ninth Amendment. It's up to the legislative government to decide.

That said, I think that government is intruding in our lives to an extent that needs some sort of check. when it takes upteen millions of dollars to run for a simple state or federal congressional seat, then government is by the monied, for the monied, with favors returned to the monied. I think the "people" and the idealism of the Founding Fathers need a little breathing room these days.

[Burkeman1]

The author of this is so glaringly ingonorant of both law and even the fundamentals of our constitution that I won't even bother responding. I find it funny that he appeals to the founding fathers and their notions of rights in his lame attempt to say that a "right to privacy" exists. The founding fathers wrote the constitution and they would be shocked indeed to find out that they nullify local sodomy and abortion laws. Only an ignorant fool (as this author) is or an outright liar can write such nonsense.

[Burkeman1]

The author of this is so glaringly ingonorant of both law and even the fundamentals of our constitution that I won't even bother responding. I find it funny that he appeals to the founding fathers and their notions of rights in his lame attempt to say that a "right to privacy" exists. The founding fathers wrote the constitution and they would be shocked indeed to find out that they nullify local sodomy and abortion laws. Only an ignorant fool (as this author) is or an outright liar can write such nonsense.

What is worse is that he actually sites the ninth amendment!

[dead]

"The Constitution just sets minimums," Scalia told an audience at John Carroll University on March 18. "Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires." Scalia is a Harvard-trained lawyer with a keen intellect and an excellent command of the language. It seems fair to assume that he meant exactly what he said.

Of course he meant it. Unlike the author, Scalia’s apparently read the 9th Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

[GraniteStateConservative]

Scalia, of course, disagreed. He rejected the contention that there is a constitutional right to privacy. He wrote that disapproval of gay sex by the majority is enough to make it a legitimate state interest. The Texas law, he says, does not discriminate against gay Americans because "men and women, homosexual and heterosexual, are all subject to its prohibition of deviate sexual intercourse with someone of the same sex."

That's like saying you can pass a law against being Jewish because that law applies to everyone, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu or atheist.

The author is right. That was a stupid thing for Scalia to state.

[sweetliberty]

I would probably agree with the ruling IF it ended in the bedroom, but it doesn't. No sooner than it was handed down, homosexual sex offenders are released from prison, suits are being filed to allow them to marry and the faggot day parade goes into overdrive. All of these things should be of interest to the state for the simple reason that they impose on other peoples' rights. They are no longer hoppy having their own meeting places and carrying on discreet relationships in the privacy of their homes or wherever it is they once preferred. They want to take it to the streets, the courthouse, the church, the workplace, the schools and wherever else they can think of, thereby offending the sensibilities and decency of the majority of people, defiling the sanctity of marriage, and recruiting OUR children in perversity. They have a powerful and growing lobby in Washington pushing their agenda against the well-being of the rest of society. They are working towards legitimizing sex with children (NAMBLA) and making their deviant lifestyle a civil right with the same weight as race. How are these issues NOT a concern of the state? The perverts will only use this ruling as the go ahead to encroach furthur on the rights of the rest of the population. It is a tragic testament to the state of our health as a nation, not to mention a serious threat to our future and that of our children and grandchildren.

[Cultural Jihad]

Homosexuals are a 'minority' only by virtue of the fact that the vast majority of people do not engage in this evil. If an evil behavior can be ascribed a minority status, then all anyone who wants to do an evil deed has to do is claim to be 'an oppressed minority.' Next the liberals will claim that rapists are a minority group. "They have the rape gene, and laws against their behavior do harm to their dignity as persons."

Never did a law against sodomy harm anyone, whereas homosexual sodomy has killed over 500,000 American men. Forget the arsenic cocktails, Dr. Kevorkian; just prescribe sodomy to your patients, in the privacy of their own homes of course.

[kevkrom]

He did not call into question a few of our rights, or some of our rights, but most of our rights. And these rights -- or what we naive citizens wrongly presume to be our rights -- do not go slightly beyond constitutional requirements, but according to Scalia go "way beyond what the Constitution requires." In other words, most of the rights that you and I believe we enjoy under the protection of the U.S. Constitution could be greatly reduced under a Scalia-dominated Supreme Court, and he would never utter a peep of protest.

This idiot has it completely backwards. Scalia's comment appears to be a direct reference to natural rights, which are held to exist independently of the Constitution. Under such an interpretation, Scalia would be more likely to defend natural rights than a Souter or Ginsburg.

What ticks off this lib, though, is that natural rights don't include the invented rights the political left demand that the courts enforce in a extra-legislative fashion. the "right to privacy" has nothing to do with actual privacy, but instead is the assertion that two or more people can contract with each other to do anything, even if it is illegal. That "right" is not a natural right.

[VOA]

bump

[stop_fascism]

Did the founders ever mention a right to privacy? Was the right to privacy ever mentioned by the spreme court before Griswold?

[tm22721]

Our society is laissez-faire, ie, we will not act against the homosexuals until a substantial subset of us have been victimized.

Then the bloodbath will begin.

BUMP

[dirtboy]

He did not call into question a few of our rights, or some of our rights, but most of our rights.

Jay Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor for the AJC - which editorialized in FAVOR of campaign finance reform. Funny how the AJC can want to limit an ENUMERATED right - while getting after Scalia for trying to stick to only those enumerated rights. What a bunch of rank hypocrites.

[aristeides]

Hmmm, this column comes out the day after David Broder's broadside against Scalia, The Scalia Model. Is somebody trying to prevent Scalia's being made chief justice?

[MissAmericanPie]

"Moral codes can and in fact must be legislated when the behavior in question harms another party. That harm makes the behavior a legitimate state interest. Child sexual abuse and child pornography, for example, clearly meet that test.

But what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home is not even a legitimate interest of their neighbors, much less of the state."

The author deliberately misses the point here. Homosexuals never keep it in the privacy of the bedroom. They will tongue lash each other in the public mall, the theater, the steak house and at the PTA meeting. They already show their intentions in their gay pride parades. Is that kept in the bedroom?

Kids that don't even see their parents embrace are treated on the news to two hairy legged, bare butted men in black leather trying to shove their tongues down each other's throat, is that what the author calls private?

Amoung the rights and freedoms retained by the people, is the right to pass laws that ensure a healthy society, and acceptable sexual behaviour. It's is the right of society, made up of the individual citizen, to determine was is deviant behaviour and protect society from such behaviour.

The court has over stepped itself big time, and yes Scalia is scum. But the law over turned was proper and correct.

[steve50]

The Constitution limits rights of government, it doesn't "grant" them to the people. It grants the government the right to legislate in very defined circumstances and clearly gives the means to expand the power of government to legislate only by Constitutional Amendment.

They've turned it on it's head. They wish us to believe that the only rights the people have are those expressly granted in the BOR and only under a changing(breathing) definition of Constitution, and that the power of government is unlimited.

We don't have more rights than the Constitution calls for. The people have more privileges than the Constitution allows the government to provide and the government has more authority than the Constitution allows.

[Sloth]

"The Constitution just sets minimums," Scalia told an audience at John Carroll University on March 18. "Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires."

Sounds to me like the 9th Amendment.

[RightWhale]

most of the rights that you and I believe we enjoy under the protection of the U.S. Constitution could be greatly reduced under a Scalia-dominated Supreme Court

'believe we enjoy'? 'could be'? 'Scalia-dominated'?
Now who's playing with language?