Text of Justice Scalia's Dissenting Opinion [to paraphrase, "epitaph for Christian civilization"]

SCOTUS ^ | Justice Scalia

[Arkinsaw]

Too much. Enough of the drama queen hysteria over this decision.

BUT, rather than allow those laws to be repealed democratically by the representatives of the people this court determined to overthrow them in one fell swoop because they were impatient with the American people's speed in accepting the agenda OR they were afraid that their arguments were losing the democratic debate.

Repeal by legislature does not set precedent. Outcome based court rulings do. THAT is what the hysteria is over and its valid.

This ruling will be used as precedent to leverage (and force) other social change that the American people have not reached a democratic conclusion on.

Who knows what the American people will determine, they may determine to repeal or create new laws to address the concerns of these groups. They may determine that the concerns of these groups do not fit in American life. Either way its a democratic decision and people generally learn to accept those decisions. But decisions by the Supreme Court that short-circuit the decision-making process of the American people causes friction, anger, social unrest, factionalism, demagoguery, hardening of attitudes, etc.

If abortion had been voted on by a majority and enacted by the people then many people would not like it but they would not have felt that they were tyrannized by elites and special interests and the debate on the issue would be of a more democratic nature, probably on a state by state basis as it should be.

Judicial activism and social engineering by the Supreme Court outside the democratic process does not advance us. It is a bandaid for social problems. It creates a mandate and not a solution. Thats what the hysteria is about.

[Arkinsaw]

while Scalia has rarely met an expanded State power that he did not like.

Scalia is brilliant and a fantasic justice. But his achilles heel is the "law and order" gene. He is not for your workaday expansion of federal power, he really is against it. EXCEPT when it deals with "law enforcement" and then he goes blind to the text and spirit of the Constitution.

[RealEstateEntrepreneur]

The number of states in which sodomy is legal was zero in 1960, 24 in 1986, and 37 in 2003--until today.

Why does the increase from 37 states to 50 states constitute an "epitaph for Christian civilization"?

[sinkspur]

The Church has the responsibility to promote the public morality of the entire civil society on the basis of fundamental moral values, not simply to protect herself from the application of harmful laws

Does that mean to enshrine criminal punishment for consensual sexual behavior behind close doors? And have that punishment apply to homosexuals, but not heterosexuals?

I like what FReeper Southack has to say:

Per the title for this thread, *why* should Conservatives despair?

The Supreme Court just ruled that *government* doesn't have the Constitutional authority to ban, tax, or regulate certain activities inside our private bedrooms.

Isn't that what Conservatives want: more restrictions on *government* authority?

Frankly, leftists can cheer and conservatives can jeer or despair, but I'd call this ruling a stealth victory for reigning in the power and scope of the federal government.

The precedent set in this case could *easily* be applied to a number of other areas in which government should be prohibited from regulating.

How can the government justify regulating my love of guns in my bedroom now, for instance?!

15 posted on 06/26/2003 8:02 PM CDT by Southack (Media bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

[mfreddy]

Well said. I don't want to go into these people's bedrooms. There's perversity in every crevice of our society, I don't want it brought out and paraded as "normal" in the light of day.

I believe it's called incrementalism.

[Jorge]

As a homosexual apologist, jorge, you sure as hell do not speak for most true Christians.

How would you know?
Your definition of a "homosexual apologist" is anyone who doesn't agree with your hatefilled homophobic rants on these boards.

The truth is...as I've stated many times before I am in complete agreement with the Biblical definition of homosexuality as sin.

But unlike you...I and most Christians don't share your unbalanced and hypocritical obsession with homosexuality.
Very few Christians I know in church or in my personal or public life..or the countless ministries I know of on or offline... share your preoccupation with homosexuality.

Guess you would say all these Christians, who don't want to stone adulters or homosexuals don't represent Christianity. Right. You read the Bible and identify with the Pharisees. Don't you.

[John W]

You've used the hyperbole regarding fundamentalism a couple times now.Could you give the details on the Texas gay stonings and unfaithful woman shootings by the sex police?We don't need that.And,we didn't have that either.

[arasina]

If only we had more truly fair and wise justices like Scalia and Thomas (and Rehnquist). SIGH.

[mfreddy]

Yes, like incest and pedophilia. "I don't care if she was eight, it was in the privacy of my own home and she said yes".

great.

[sinkspur]

11. There are areas in which it is not unjust discrimination to take sexual orientation into account, for example, in the consignment of children to adoption or foster care, in employment of teachers or coaches, and in military recruitment.

And I agree with every single one of these.

Ratzinger does not, however, have one single word to say about enshrining into law criminal penalties for what homosexuals do behind closed doors.

[Skywalk]

Thanks for clarifying that. I should have meant "expanded POLICE/LE power." I know he's not for expanding welfare and other such programs.

He IS brilliant and I don't have a huge problem with him on the court, as the alternative might be another Souter or Ginsburg.

I just don't like his decisions on law and order.

[sinkspur]

Yes, like incest and pedophilia. "I don't care if she was eight, it was in the privacy of my own home and she said yes".

I don't remember reading that the Supreme Court had a single word to say about incest or pedophilia, both of which are not consensual and which have, in 99% of the cases, unwilling victims.

[Sabertooth]

I'm no fan of the homosexual agenda, but that doesn't mean that because a right is not explicitly listed in the constitution that it doesn't exist.

Any evidence that the Founnders believed in a right to homosexual sodomy?

If not, then this is not a federal issue, and the SCOTUS never should have heard the case. States should be free to regulate nonfederal issues, or not, as the populace of those states sees fit.

[Antoninus]

Marriage Amendment NOW!

[Polycarp]

Sink, THINK!!!

"State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision; the Court makes no effort to cabin the scope of its decision to exclude them from its holding. See ante, at 11 (noting "an emerging awareness that liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex" (emphasis added)). The impossibility of distinguish-ing homosexuality from other traditional "morals" offenses is precisely why Bowers rejected the rational-basis chal-lenge. "The law," it said, "is constantly based on notions of morality, and if all laws representing essentially moral choices are to be invalidated under the Due Process Clause, the courts will be very busy indeed."

What a massive disruption of the current social order, therefore, the overruling of Bowers entails.

I turn now to the ground on which the Court squarely rests its holding: the contention that there is no rational basis for the law here under attack. This proposition is so out of accord with our jurisprudence—indeed, with the jurisprudence of any society we know—that it requires little discussion.

The Texas statute undeniably seeks to further the belief of its citizens that certain forms of sexual behavior are "immoral and unacceptable," Bowers, supra, at 196—the same interest furthered by criminal laws against fornica-tion, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and ob-scenity.

Bowers held that this was a legitimate state interest. The Court today reaches the opposite conclusion. .. The Court embraces instead JUSTICE STEVENS’ declaration in his Bowers dissent, that "the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice," ante, at 17. This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation. If, as the Court asserts, the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest, none of the above-mentioned laws can survive rational-basis review.

[Polycarp]

Your words betray you.

[Antoninus]

Your way would have been much better. As it stands now, gay marriage via the courts is just a matter of time unless we get a Constitutional Marriage Amendment.

I think we better get to work....

[magellan]

It seems this law should have been challenged in the Texas courts and reviewed against the Texas constitution by the Supreme Court of Texas, prior to consideration by the SCOTUS.

[longtermmemmory]

So if texas decided to outlaw homosexuality, they could? Seriously, how would you codify a prohibition of homosexuality? How can the law be remade to be legal. Can a landlord prohibit same sex couples? Unmarried couples? How to redo the law.

Mantatory treatment? Every person arrested must have a aides test? (results given to the testee and only the proof of test administration goes into the court record)

[Polycarp]

Hmmm...Won't SCROTUS now simply declare a Constitutional Marriage Amendment unconstitutional?