If you think the defense of marriage act is unconstitutional, marry a man, or several, and sue your way to the SCOTUS.
Posted on 06/28/2003 7:08:52 AM PDT by Polycarp
Is Lawrence Worse Than Roe?
CRISIS Magazine - e-Letter
June 27, 2003
**********************************************
There has been a lot of lot of talk since yesterday's Supreme Court decision in the case of Lawrence v. Texas, a dispute over Texas' law making sodomy illegal. The Supreme Court overturned that law by a vote of 6 to 3, saying that such laws "demean the lives of homosexual persons" and infringe upon their right to privacy.
Let me tell you right now: Lawrence is a devastating decision, worse than most people think -- and for reasons that haven't fully dawned on them yet.
I have to admit, the implications of this decision hadn't occurred to me yet, either, but after talking to my friend Professor Robert George of Princeton this morning, I can say that this is without question the most damaging decision handed down by the courts since Roe v. Wade -- one that will have even more far-reaching effects than its predecessor.
George is a political philosopher and a very smart guy. He pointed out a few things about the decision that I hadn't noticed. And because this decision is so huge, I wanted to make sure that I passed on his concerns to you.
Believe me, this is vitally important.
First, a little background history. As you may already know, Roe v. Wade based its decision to make abortion legal upon a woman's right to privacy, which the court found in the 14th amendment in the Constitution. The problem is, the 14th amendment doesn't give a person a right to privacy. What the 14th amendment REALLY guarantees is that no state "shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of the law." You won't find a right to privacy here or in any other part of the Constitution.
The 14th amendment only protects rights by due process, meaning that they can't be taken from you except by formal procedures in accordance with established law. In other words, you can't be executed (deprived of life), jailed (deprived of liberty), or fined (deprived of property) without the government going through the proper procedure of arresting you, giving you a fair trial, and so on.
So what does this have to do with a right to privacy? Absolutely nothing. And yet this is what the Roe decision is based on. Legal scholars, both conservative and liberal alike, have denounced this faulty reasoning that they call "substantive due process." It's really a contradiction in terms: Instead of simply guaranteeing that you will receive certain treatment by the law, the law has been stretched to mean that you will also be guaranteed a certain RESULT.
What began in Roe has now come to fruition in Lawrence: A certain privileged class of actions is being protected from legal restriction by the Supreme Court. First abortion, now sodomy -- what will be next? Euthanasia?
It's up to the people to vote into effect certain laws through their legislature. It's the only fair way of guaranteeing that what the people want becomes the law of the land, rather than what a few justices on the Supreme Court want.
But this, George explained to me, is what happened in Roe v. Wade. The justices forced their hand to produce a certain outcome. Since then, the Supreme Court has avoided using the tricky (and completely false) "substantive due process" rationale in deciding cases.
That is, until now.
The six justices who voted to repeal the sodomy law yesterday did so because they said the law produced an unfair outcome -- unfair because it discriminates against homosexuals.
But the law was enacted according to the rules of due process -- the people supported it, the state legislature wrote it, and the governor signed it. There is nothing unfair about the process it underwent in becoming law. If people today feel that the law is unfair or outdated, they can vote to repeal it just as they voted to enact it, and THAT would be a fair process.
But for the COURT to say that the law produced an unfair outcome takes this power from the people and puts it in the hands of nine Supreme Court justices. This was certainly never the intention of the 14th amendment.
Nevertheless, that's what the Supreme Court did. And not only that -- in his statement for the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy made his decision so broad that ANY case that comes before the court in the future could appeal to "substantive due process" to dispense with the law and get the outcome they want.
And that is what's really scary about this decision. With Roe, the decision applied only to abortion rights. But with Lawrence, the door has been opened for other kinds of sexual behavior to be exempted from restrictive legislation as well.
For example, if a case comes before the Supreme Court arguing in favor of incest, according to the Lawrence decision, there's no reason why incest should be outlawed. The court no longer has any principled basis for upholding laws that prohibit incest, bigamy, bestiality, you name it.
So what does this mean for the future? Well, think about this: Because Texas' sodomy law has been struck down, all the remaining states with sodomy laws will have to dispense with them as well.
And what about homosexual marriage? The Massachusetts legislature is considering that issue right now. If they decide in favor of it, any homosexual marriage contracted in Massachusetts has to be acknowledged in every other state.
With sodomy laws still in place, this wouldn't have been the case. No state is forced to accept contracts from another state that go against their own laws and policies. But now that the sodomy laws will be removed, no state has a legal defense against homosexual marriage. They'll all fall like dominoes.
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.
If the Supreme Court finds the amendment unconstitutional -- which, thanks to Lawrence, they now claim the right to do -- then we're sunk. The homosexual agenda will have won the day.
And this is why it's absolutely CRUCIAL that Catholics, Evangelicals, and all social conservatives in America band together NOW to stop them. There has been infighting among the groups in the past -- some think the Federal Marriage Amendment is too strong, others think it isn't strong enough -- but we have to put those differences aside and make the best we can with what we have.
CRISIS ran an article on just this problem in our July/August issue last year, "Can Same-Sex Marriage Be Stopped?", encouraging people to take note of the slow change that is already beginning. With Lawrence decided, we can't spare another minute. Visit the Alliance's Website, www.allianceformarriage.org, to find out more about how you can help.
I hate to end on such a grim note before the weekend, but I wanted to get this out to you as quickly as I could. The sooner we understand the danger that marriage in America is in, the sooner we can act to save it.
Til next time, Deal
So you don't have a problem with the violation of the 14th. Amendment?
You asked me if I practiced homosexuality, that was my answer to your question in a subsequent post.
Now, answer my question and we will continue.
Do you engage in acts of sodomy?
If you think the defense of marriage act is unconstitutional, marry a man, or several, and sue your way to the SCOTUS.
All right! Fair enough! I should have stated my premises, before posting my comment. For the purposes of the comment they were as follows. Based upon the comments of others in the thread, I concluded--and assumed:
1. That the Judge in turning the offender loose, was doing so because the law would have punished an 18 year old, taking sexual liberties with a 14 year old, less seriously than it punished this individual, taking deviant liberties with another boy.
2. That his rationale for such act was the voiding of the Texas Sodomy law, a day or two earlier, because the Court held it to violate the rights of Homosexuals to privacy.
3. That the Court was, in effect, holding that actions driven by normal sex urges--the force for ongoing life--could somehow be equated with diverted or preverted urges, growing out of hormonal action, but focused on an object that would be inappropriate even were there no age question involved.
If the Judge acted for some other reason, not based upon those assumptions, then my comments were indeed inappropriate. And I apologize. If my assumptions were, on the other hand, substantially correct; than my comments were appropriate, and should be reiterated, accordingly.
Thank you for helping to clarify the discussion.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
Now, you are defending the Federal Government's violation of the Constitution so that you can attack what you perceive to be the violation of the Constitution by the SCOTUS.
You are starting to remind me of my cat when he used to run in circles chasing his own tail.
The Constitutionalists lost. Quit thinking this was just about homosexuals - The ruling was bad law. Period. The legal busybodies who like judicial activism won. Judicial restraint lost. Which means we Conservatives lost. I am too busy thinking of the 30 million dead unborn as the 'price' of this erroneous Constitutional philosophy that 'privacy rights means unrestraint from moral legislation' to imagine the silver lining.
Besides, the liberals who supported this have consistently favored expansion of govt against property rights etc. You are being a pollyanna if you think this holds back Government. It will increase the scope and size of the federal government, as a moral state declines, only a regulated states is sufficient to maintain public peace. Freedom, in the end, has lost in the bargain too. Did Roe advance 'freedom'. You are a fool if you think "yes".
Let's use the word contract. Can you name any contract that is legal between 18 year olds generally, but not for one group in particular? Other than marriage I mean. I am struggling to find one. If one quantified the rights, responsibilities of marriage, in a civil union contract, what part of it is uneforceable legally, and on what grounds? You do not need to produce children to be married. You can be sterile. You don't even need to "consumate" the marriage for it to be considered legal. If you marry somebody, and live as roommates for 10 years, then divide, your assets will still be split up.
You can be married in civil court, so it is not strictly a religious institution. Heterosexual atheists are free to enter into this contract. Religious claiming women who are lesbian are not. Therefore, on both civil grounds and legal grounds, the institute of marriage does not on it's face institute a purely religious institution.
So, legally again, how can the contract be voided? How can the government obviously not give the same benefits to civil union couples as married couples without violating equal protection?
The morality and legality are different issues. Let us not confuse the both. I believe Torie is correct. A house divided is going to fall, unless some major renovation is done.
The defense of marriage act will not hold more weight than the paper it is printed upon. A defense of marriage amendment to the constitution would. Until that point, all bets are off.
Another erroneous doctrine upheld. these are 2 distinct actions, why should sentence be the same? ... what foolishness. The sentencing for shoplifting, theft and fraud must also be same?
Because if a person is going to advocate immorality for others, he's pretty damn hypocritical if he holds himself above it himself, eh?
Like a evil man who portrays a deadly-risk task as a cakewalk and motivates a co-worker he secretly dislikes to do a the job , saying "Hey, trust me, it's safe, it's easy" The co-worker is killed. The evil man washes his hands and moves on.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.