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

SCOTUS ^ | Justice Scalia

[Luis Gonzalez]

That's a law bannig all sodomy, not same-sex sodomy. The Texas law banned same-sex sodomy.

That was the point I was trying to make.

[Jorge]

Umm...you don’t see the police busting down doors to find consensual incest, bestiality or consensual pedophilia either, do you?

These things are... and should continue to be illegal whether heterosexual or homosexual.

I don't believe this sodomy ruling should effect the status of these acts at all.

[Jorge]

But this is a watershed ruling in Judicial over-reach. The practical implications will go FAR BEYOND enforcement or (already barely enforced) sodomy laws. We just dont know what's in the Pandora's box yet.

So unless we support laws that say we can bust down doors of consenting adults to to arrest them for things like sodomy or adultery....we will be opening a pandora's box?

Is this our only choice?

[Clint N. Suhks]

These things are... and should continue to be illegal whether heterosexual or homosexual.

But with this ruling they can be challenged in exactly the same way homosexuals did to remove sodomy laws, there is NO difference with this broad decision. Citing substantive due process as the criterion to remove laws against “consenting” behavior, ALL consenting behaviors have equal standing under the law. Provisions that result in the unfair, arbitrary, or unreasonable treatment of an individual where no civil rights are violated state legislative law can be overturned now using Lawrence.

[WOSG]

So unless we support laws that say we can bust down doors of consenting adults to to arrest them for things like sodomy or adultery....we will be opening a pandora's box? Is this our only choice?

Jorge, your correct choice is to follow the wisdom of Justice Thomas. Realize that just because a law is bad, doesnt make it unconstitutional. And you dont have to like the Texas law to support the position that upholds its constitutionality. that seems to be the big hangup here. I for one consider this Texas law an unfortunate mistake that was kept on the books too long. But the harm done by this ruling to the rule of law is far greater than the error of a practically unenforced law:

I join Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion. I write separately to note that the law before the Court today “is … uncommonly silly.” Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 527 (1965) (Stewart, J., dissenting). If I were a member of the Texas Legislature, I would vote to repeal it. Punishing someone for expressing his sexual preference through noncommercial consensual conduct with another adult does not appear to be a worthy way to expend valuable law enforcement resources.

Notwithstanding this, I recognize that as a member of this Court I am not empowered to help petitioners and others similarly situated. My duty, rather, is to “decide cases ‘agreeably to the Constitution and laws of the United States.’ ” Id., at 530. And, just like Justice Stewart, I “can find [neither in the Bill of Rights nor any other part of the Constitution a] general right of privacy,” ibid., or as the Court terms it today, the “liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions,” ante, at 1.