UNNATURAL LAW (Supremes to review sodomy laws) liberal barf-and offensive content alert

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."

You may not see the threat, but it is there. You think you can only be affected by these diseases by sharing a needle or sex, but it's not true. We had a healthcare worker come down with MSRP, which she got from a patient who got it from a hospital.

We've had two health care workers accidentally stuck by needles. Each time that happens it requires expensive procedures to insure they didn't pick up a disease. It adds to the cost of your healthcare insurance. And more and more companies are dropping health care insurance because they can't afford it.

All of our employees have to be vaccinated against hepatitis, yet another disease that was strenthened in the gay and drug communities.

And checking that blood costs time and money. Another cost imposed on the rest of society by the 1% deviants.

It's a direct cost to you. Look at the cost of your insurance and your taxes. Your insurance is paying healthcare tab for the working public and your taxes are paying for those that can't work anymore.

If you want smaller government, then support the sodomy laws. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

You do understand the health hazards associated with homosexuals?

Are you denying the health hazards in heterosexual promiscuity?

Is that good?

What? Your stereotyping? No, it is bad.

You don't mind being their medical funding slave..

I mind funding ANY MEDICAL help. The government has no right to rob me of my money in order to fund other's medical care in an inefficient manner.

It's a major public health hazard.

Not much more that hetrosexual promescuity. Oh, but straight people should be FREE, it is the fags that need to be imprisoned?

Antibiotic resistand staff infection came from AIDs patients.

Whoopty friggin doo. There are millions around the world infected through HETERO sex.....

What if a homosexual with AIDs worked in a restaurant and cut his finger while preparing your meal.

What if it was a straight person with AIDS? Why the #@$# should I care what his sexual preference is, if he/she has AIDS I would prefer not to be served by them.

What if a NAMBLA guy with AIDs got your sons consent. Would you then feel the same?

You are right, I only want non infected NAMBLA members to get my son's consent..... WTF?

Why should the man be forced to hire him?

He shouldn't be forced to hire ANYONE. So what?

In fact, without a law forcing inspections, the markets would gravitate to uninspected meat because it would be cheaper.

The end result would be more sickness, higher health insurance bills, higher taxes and more individuals and lawyers suing meat companies.

Since insurance companies would then raise their premiums to meat companies. That would eventually raise the cost of meat to the public. Probably higher than the government inspection program ever did.

That why we have these laws, and thats why there is not an outcry against them. Because they serve the public's good, just like the sodomy laws.

Do you understand the health hazards associated with alcohol? If we're going to legislate on health issues, alcohol abuse, by measure of its harm to us individually and as a society, takes a far greater priority of place than the impact of gays in the transmission of STDs.

Wrong. AIDs funding and costs of searching for a cure cost America more than any other illness. It's was the #1 cause in Washington during the Clinton regime. Other lobbyists were furious that AIDs was put in front of cancer, heart disease, and birth defects and everything else. The funding is still there, and the world wants more!!
Then there's the AIDs babies. Innocent victims of sodomites. Seen the AIDs clock lately? It includes America, too.

You keep coming up with these left-oriented responses to problems. And again, that reinforces my contention that religious conservatives are very similar to fiscal liberals in many ways, and that only the gay and abortion issues keep them in the Republican camp.

Wrong again. AIDs funding and the homosexual Marxist agenda is on the left.
I believe in God, and read the Bible to understand it's logic. It's a deep book, but has eons of wisdom.
I never claimed to be a saint. Hell, if God lets me in to do nothing but polish the pearly gates I'd be happy.
The Bible teaches accountability and consequences of certain actions. Damn! It always turns out right!
A section called "Romans I" explains how the homosexuals killed themselves off. I'll be darned if it wasn't profetic. It's happening just like that today. Others, liberal whores and the like, will eventually die with them. This is just the beginning. AIDs isn't done mutating yet. Guess "God" planned this one out pretty well. He said he wouldn't be mocked. I'll bet you $100 he'll be right again.

In fact, without a law forcing inspections, the markets would gravitate to uninspected meat because it would be cheaper.

The cost would not be that significant. How do you think the BBB operates?

The end result would be more sickness, higher health insurance bills, higher taxes and more individuals and lawyers suing meat companies.

If you use logic, it would result in more accurate inspections and LESS sickness.

Because they serve the public's good, just like the sodomy laws.

My @$$ (no pun intended). Sodomy laws simply impower government to rule our private lives.

Since insurance companies would then raise their premiums to meat companies. That would eventually raise the cost of meat to the public. Probably higher than the government inspection program ever did.

Some people aren't capable of deductive reasoning. They can't see potential consequences for some reason.
If dominos are lined up in numerous patterns, and the first domino is knocked over, the rest of the dominos follow the pattern, one after the other.
Some people cannot grasp the concept. They seem to think all the dominos will follow a straight line because they were told by someone they would.
They don't understand how dominos can can follow a different corse, and sometimes that course causes them to fall off the end of the table.
A wise person can look at the dominos and see where they'll head, where others are blinded by the idea they'll always follow the propaganda path, the path they were lead to believe, and the path they feel safest with - The "Politically correct" path - that ends up being the one that always falls off the table.

The BBB works great for auto-repairs and air conditioners where the cost of failure is not that high. And where businesses can purchase membership in return for the marketing perks they receive.
But when it comes to health issues, you really want to completely avoid failures. When it comes to buildings, you want to completely avoid failures.

If someone could come up with a private organization that would reduce sodomy and the associated spread of disease and medical costs, I would gladly become a member of it.

But since there is no marketing benefit like businesses receive in the BBB, then there really wouldn't be an incentive for most people to join, therefore game theory predicts it wouldn't work. Therefore, you pass a law and fund it with taxes.

It remains the appropriate role of Government.

An estimated 10% of the population is alcoholic. The impact on families, lost work, car accidents, increased health costs for that 10%, their families and employers, greatly exceeds the cost of AIDS medicines and research for the small percentage of the population which has AIDS (and which seems to be transmitted by heterosexuals iwth increasing frequency).

Let's see. WRONG AGAIN!
AIDs in America statistics - Avert.Org

Here is a medical reason…. Without using Richard Simmons or even God for that matter to explain why it is a good law.

Add to your list - The law of Nature and the fact this particular body part was created to get rid of waste. It was NOT created to have something forced into it going the opposite direction. This can cause serious medical problems. Tearing the tissue and subjecting the person to serious health problems… let alone the STD’s that have become rampant -because of this act… much worse HIV!

Some of you seem to think that the States have no right in enacting or keeping a law in regards to sodomy – have you ever considered the fact that it has cost States astronomically in Health care cost.

Don’t make it a law – if privacy is your worry– but from what I understand and have been told – you may as well play Russian Roulette your life.

I wish they would tell the truth about HIV instead of just covering it up – with a condom (no pun intended)

I know you were just using some humor and I even grinned when I read it – I have to say though – it gave me an opportunity to voice my opinion on a subject that a lot of people don’t seem to think is very serious. :o)

You know what else? Alcoholism can be cured, unlike AIDs. Victims of alcoholics can also be saved.
Sodomites die. So do their victims. 100% of the time!

If someone could come up with a private organization that would reduce sodomy and the associated spread of disease and medical costs

What about all the diseases passed through hetero sex? Oh that's ok by you.......

It remains the appropriate role of Government.

It is ONLY a role of the government when people's RIGHTS are violated. A man sleeping with another man violates your rights in no way.

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