Posted on 12/10/2002 11:21:41 AM PST by Liz
Like whist, whilst, and self-abuse, the word sodomy has an old-fashioned ring to it. You don't even see it alluded to much anymore, except in punning tabloid headlines about the situation in Iraq. But it—or its kissin' cousin, the nearly as archaic-sounding "deviate sexual intercourse"—can be found in the criminal codes of thirteen states of the Union, where it is punishable by penalties ranging from a parking-ticket-size fine to (theoretically) ten years in prison.
Even at this late date, many people are vague about just exactly what sodomy is. Montesquieu defined it as "the crime against nature," which is not especially helpful. Blackstone called it "the infamous crime against nature, committed either with man or beast," which gets us a little further, but not much. Back in the U.S.A., the statute books tend to be franker. Some states bring animals into the picture, some don't. The Texas Legislature's definition is nonzoological.
SKIP THIS IF EXPLICIT LANGUAGE OFFENDS. According to Section 21.01 of the Texas Penal Code (readers of delicate sensibilities may at this point wish to skip down a few lines), " 'Deviate sexual intercourse' means: (A) any contact between any part of the genitals of one person and the mouth or anus of another person; or (B) the penetration of the genitals or the anus of another person with an object."
RESUME READING HERE What the Lone Star State does and does not view as some kinda deviated preversion became of national interest last week, when the United States Supreme Court agreed to consider Lawrence v. Texas. The Lawrence of the case is John G. Lawrence, fifty-nine years old, of Houston, who, on the evening of September 17, 1998, was in his apartment with a guest, Tyron Garner, who is thirty-five. Texas got involved when police, having been tipped off by a neighbor that a "weapons disturbance" was in progress, busted down the door. (The tip was a deliberate lie on the part of the neighbor, who was later convicted of filing a false report.)
What the officers found Lawrence and Garner doing is really none of our business, any more than it was any of Texas's; suffice it to say that it was consensual, nonviolent, and noise-free. The two men were arrested, jailed overnight, and eventually fined two hundred dollars each. They appealed, a three-judge panel of a district appeals court reversed their conviction, the full nine-judge appeals court reversed the reversal, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declined to do any more reversing. And so to Washington.
The statute under which Lawrence and Garner were convicted, Section 21.06 of the Texas Penal Code, is officially known as the Homosexual Conduct Law. Ironically, this statute was a product of the progressive mood of the early nineteen-seventies. In most of the states that still criminalize sodomy, it doesn't matter, legally, whether a couple engaging in behavior (A), above, consists of two men, two women, or one of each.
That's how it was in Texas, too, until 1974. In that bell-bottomed year, the Texas Legislature made heterosexual sodomy legal, but it couldn't quite bring itself to do the same for gays. The result is that Texas is now one of only four states (the others being Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma) where it is a crime for gays to please each other in ways that are perfectly legal for straights. The panel that overturned the conviction saw this as discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
The full state court disagreed. Rather, confirming what Anatole France called "the majestic egalitarianism of the law, which forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges," the court pointed out that in Texas homosexuality is illegal for heterosexuals and homosexuals alike. No discrimination there.
According to the Times's Linda Greenhouse, the Supreme Court probably wouldn't have taken the case unless a majority had already decided to "revisit" Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), which upheld the constitutionality of Georgia's sodomy law.
The decision in that case—by a vote of five to four, as with so many of the Court's clunkers—was an embarrassment. Both its language and its reasoning were shockingly coarse. Writing for the majority, Justice Byron White defined "the issue"—leeringly, sarcastically, obtusely, and repeatedly—as "whether the Federal Constitution confers a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy," or protects "a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy," or extends "a fundamental right to homosexuals to engage in acts of consensual sodomy." Any such claim, he added, "is, at best, facetious."
Caricaturing the well-established constitutional right to privacy in this nyah-nyah way is like dismissing the First Amendment as being all about the right to make doo-doo jokes. It was left to the author of the dissenting opinion, Justice Harry Blackmun, to point out, quoting Justice Brandeis, that the case was really "about 'the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men,' namely 'the right to be let alone.' "
Justice Lewis Powell, who tipped the balance in Bowers v. Hardwick, expressed regret years later that he had voted the way he did. He's gone now. John Paul Stevens, who dissented, William Rehnquist, now Chief Justice, and Sandra Day O'Connor are the only holdovers from the Court that upheld Georgia's sodomy law (which, by the way, was thrown out, a few months after Lawrence and Garner were arrested in Houston, by Georgia's supreme court, for violating Georgia's constitution).
Half the states that had sodomy laws when Bowers was decided have got rid of them, and those that still have them seldom enforce them. But when they are enforced the consequences can be more onerous than it may appear. Lawrence and Garner aren't just out four hundred bucks; they may also be banned from certain professions, from nursing to school-bus driving, and are deprived of other privileges denied to persons who have been convicted of "crimes of moral turpitude."
Anyway, sodomy laws are a standing insult to, among others, millions of respectable citizens who happen to be gay. They are an absurd anachronism and an obvious violation of the right to privacy. Whatever they may have represented in Montesquieu's day, or even Byron White's, in 2002 they are nothing but an expression of bigotry. If the Supreme Court takes a truly honest look at Section 21.06 of the Texas Penal Code, it will surely agree with the view of Dickens's Mr. Bumble: this is one case where, at bottom, "the law is a ass."
--SNIP -- Clink on source link for rest of story (go to next)
Actually some say animals can consent, regardless animals are property and therefor consent is not needed; animal consent is only a straw man for your perversion.
I do not think children are able to give informed consent
First of all Informed consent is only needed for medical procedures, yet another straw man for justifying your perversion. Simple consent is all that is needed for sex, or in your case sodomy. Second, science says some children have the mental capacity to give consent and it’s hypocritical to deny them their rights when capable of meeting that burden.
And I guess you have to give relatives a pass, right?
Bisexuals are homosexuals and trying to define the degree of the pathology serves no purpose. There are no part time pedophiles ONLY pedophiles, n’est ce pas? Just as there are no part time homosexuals, there are no part time pathologies.
What right does the state have to say that if you dog shows undue interest in said activity, it your duty to turn him or her away?
None of these topics is, thank God, addressed by the U.S. Constitution. Those who ask the Supreme Court to read a right to sexual freedom into the Constitution should consider all the other bogus rights such a liberal court is likely to read into the Constitution, such as the right of a state to ignore the second amendment. Your can't favor rule of law and then ask the Supreme Court to ignore the plain meaning of the Constitution in its decisions.
Tuberculosis is incredibly transmittable and sometimes deadly.
Or about about a person who knows they may be a carrier of the gene that causes cystic fybrosis?
Neither is a "chosen deathtyle." Homosexual sodomy is volentary.
Wow. The link in the above was one of the sickest I have seen in a long time. However, I have no doubt that an animal can give consent to animal-like behavior. Beastiality is a great example of what is wrong with the pure liberatarianism.
Homosexuals brought AIDs to America. Now we all suffer the consequences of their actions. Millions!
If you go for a smallpox shot, they'll check you for it. If you have a trace of HIV, you're out. You'll actually get smallpox!
God works in strange ways. Too bad for you, aye? Guess it was your "choice."
Actually, I could care less one way or the other. I had no part in the "choice" to get it. I try to stop it from spreading , remember? I'm pro-anti-health hazards. LOL
Anyway, you and your bud FF578 have fun trying going from home to home trying to stop couples (he means the married heteros too) from having oral sex.
What if the dead person had posted on the net just last week bragging of their necrophilia? And what if the child was like the teenage Monica Lewinsky, who allegedly threw herself at older married men? As for animals, if you had a dog, you would know that they instantly make quite clear which activities they like and which they don't.
I think from his posts here that dflan1973 is decent enough to know that all of these things are wrong regardless of the consent issue.
dflan1973, if I am right that you are new here, welcome. You probably picked the wrong topic though. Most FR posters are basically tolerant of gays, but a thread on the topic of homosexuality does not show us at our best here. Be the first to post the next Tammy Bruce column, and you will get a friendier reception.
Bad argument.
Heterosexuals were made for each other. When they marry, they become one. They can express their love in any way they wish.
It's the mentally ill ,or should I say mentally challenged, who don't know what they are. They're like human mutations. He? She? What are they? It's?
He has. It's called AIDS! - ThomasMore
Sorry. The judgment against men is not AIDS, it's homosexuality. God gave them over to their lusts. What a horrific judgment it is when God gives you over to a depraved mind.
History repeats itself. Romans I. The plagues aren't over yet. AIDs is just the first.
He bases that on court decisions from the 19th century. Of course, back then they also thought owning other humans because your own ass was too lazy to do work was ok too.
Do it yourself. You liberals expect everyone else to do everything for you. Even cure you self inflicted diseases. *sigh*
Sorry I dared to disagree with those that think they should be able to control what I do in my sex life. BTW, I am hetero. But I bet you assumed otherwise.
Here, I'll tell some gay jokes so you I can fit in.
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