Posted on 04/14/2003 12:22:30 PM PDT by scripter
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Those are my thoughts and hopes as well, and one of the reasons for my continued drive in pushing this issue to the top where everyone can see the truth for themselves.
Probably about 1 generation.
Mardi Gras;)
Clearly you did not read today's Girls Gone Wild thread.
OK OK, no anonymous sex in the shrubbery. Male homosexuals are in fact uniquely agressive about sex. But heteros will go 85% of the way there, more than far enough to get every bluenose's panties in a twist.
The answer is written in the Constitution: Freedom of association. Boy Scouts and Cathoics should be free to exclude gays. Gays can have their gayborhoods.
Sad indeed. I think a freeper on my ping list refers to it the same way, but calls it SAD (Same-sex Attraction Disorder).
Held: The Georgia statute is constitutional. Pp. 190-196 .
(a) The Constitution does not confer a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy. None of the fundamental rights announced in this Court's prior cases involving family relationships, marriage, or procreation bear any resemblance to the right asserted in this case. And any claim that those cases stand for the proposition that any kind of private sexual conduct between consenting adults is constitutionally insulated from state proscription is unsupportable. Pp. 190-191 .
(b) Against a background in which many States have criminalized sodomy and still do, to claim that a right to engage in such conduct is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" is, at best, facetious. Pp. 191-194 .
(c) There should be great resistance to expand the reach of the Due Process Clauses to cover new fundamental rights. Otherwise, the Judiciary necessarily would take upon itself further authority to govern the country without constitutional authority. The claimed right in this case falls far short of overcoming this resistance. Pp. 194-195 .
(d) The fact that homosexual conduct occurs in the privacy of the home does not affect the result. Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 , distinguished. Pp. 195-196 .
(e) Sodomy laws should not be invalidated on the asserted basis that majority belief that sodomy is immoral is an inadequate rationale to support the laws. P. 196 .
Hundreds rally for '10 Commandments judge'
"They have objected to my behavior as a judge because I reference the moral foundation of the law when we talked about sodomy, when we talked about adultery, when we talked about separation of church and state. I go back to the legal history that we have here in Alabama, our court case precedents, and the foundations of law to show that these things comport with the Scriptures from which we get our moral foundation."
Gay rights organizations in Alabama and Washington, including Equality Begins at Home of Central Alabama, are calling for Moore's resignation, accusing him of using "right-wing rhetoric and far right religious dogma to justify homophobia and execution of homosexuals."
The effort is in response to the Alabama high court's unanimous decision to reject a lesbian mother's child custody petition. Moore wrote a separate concurring opinion, repudiating homosexuality on religious grounds, calling it "abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of nature and of nature's God."
Because of the nature of the crime, the penalties for the act of sodomy were often severe. For example, Thomas Jefferson indicated that in his home state of Virginia, "dismemberment" of the offensive organ was the penalty for sodomy. 7 In fact, Jefferson himself authored a bill penalizing sodomy by castration. 8 The laws of the other states showed similar or even more severe penalties:
That the detestable and abominable vice of buggery [sodomy] . . . shall be from henceforth adjudged felony . . . and that every person being thereof convicted by verdict, confession, or outlawry [unlawful flight to avoid prosecution], shall be hanged by the neck until he or she shall be dead. 9 NEW YORK
That if any man shall lie with mankind as he lieth with womankind, both of them have committed abomination; they both shall be put to death. 10 CONNECTICUT
Sodomy . . . shall be punished by imprisonment at hard labour in the penitentiary during the natural life or lives of the person or persons convicted of th[is] detestable crime. 11 GEORGIA
That if any man shall commit the crime against nature with a man or male child . . . every such offender, being duly convicted thereof in the Supreme Judicial Court, shall be punished by solitary imprisonment for such term not exceeding one year and by confinement afterwards to hard labor for such term not exceeding ten years. 12 MAINE
That if any person or persons shall commit sodomy . . . he or they so offending or committing any of the said crimes within this province, their counsellors, aiders, comforters, and abettors, being convicted thereof as above said, shall suffer as felons. 13 [And] shall forfeit to the Commonwealth all and singular the lands and tenements, goods and chattels, whereof he or she was seized or possessed at the time . . . at the discretion of the court passing the sentence, not exceeding ten years, in the public gaol or house of correction of the county or city in which the offence shall have been committed and be kept at such labor. 14 PENNSYLVANIA
[T]he detestable and abominable vice of buggery [sodomy] . . . be from henceforth adjudged felony . . . and that the offenders being hereof convicted by verdict, confession, or outlawry [unlawful flight to avoid prosecution], shall suffer such pains of death and losses and penalties of their goods. 15 SOUTH CAROLINA
That if any man lieth with mankind as he lieth with a woman, they both shall suffer death. 16 VERMONT
8. Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew A. Lipscomb, editor (Washington, D. C.: Thomas Jefferson M emorial Association, 1904), Vol. I, pp. 226-227, from Jefferson's "For Proportioning Crimes and Punishments."
9. Laws of the State of New-York . . . Since the Revolution (New York: Thomas Greenleaf, 1798), Vol. I, p. 336.
10. The Public Statute Laws of the State of Connecticut (Hartford: Hudson and Goodwin, 1808), Book I, p. 295.
11. A Digest of the Laws of the State of Georgia (Milledgeville: Grantland & Orme, 1822), p. 350.
12. Laws of the State of Maine (Hallowell: Goodale, Glazier & Co., 1822), p. 58.
13. Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: John Bioren, 1810), Vol. I, p. 113.
14. Collinson Read, An Abridgment of the Laws of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1801), p. 279.
15. Alphabetical Digest of the Public Statute Laws of South-Carolina (Charleston: John Hoff, 1814), Vol. I, p. 99.
16. Statutes of the State of Vermont (Bennington, 1791), p. 74.
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