Replies

You know what? You and few other people obviously have an agenda regarding this issue (homosexual). I've seen posts with a few of the people who are posting everything they can on this one subject and they are blatantly in colussion to SPAM this forum.....trying to get FReepers to make it an issue for you (and whatever your 'cause' is) by using 'scare tactics' and blasting 'links' on the threads - trying to 'demonize' good people like myself and others with your constant twisting of facts and 'jabs' at us.

Take a Hike and take your little facist SWAT team with you. Nobody is falling for it. This is AMERICA and people have rights here. If you don't like it, you best move to Cuba if that's not where you are already. Get a life.

Good people can disagree on the subject of homosexuality and bi-sexuality in regards to various issues but to the people who keep SPAMMING this forum with the same 'links' over and over on EVERY thread which all seem to have to include the word 'anus' or something.....go away and most of us have other things to think about around here like if we are going to war in the coming weeks.....tactics these people are using as well as the hate-filled cliches about conservatives they are trying to create is getting out of hand. Thanks.

Gay-To-Straight Research Published In APA Journal

The American Psychological Association's prestigious journal Professional Psychology: Research and Practice has just published a comprehensive research paper on sexual-orientation change. Clients have the right to pursue change, the author says, because "sexual orientation, once thought to be an unchanging trait, is actually quite flexible for some people."

New Study Confirms Homosexuality Can Be Overcome

ENCINO, Calif.--May 17, 1997--Nearly 25 years after the American Psychiatric Association officially removed homosexuality from its Diagnostic Manual, labeling it a lifestyle choice rather than a psychological disorder, a California-based association of psychiatrists and psychologists has proven that homosexuals can change their orientation through intense therapy and a strong desire to change.

What Causes Homosexual Desire

Can homosexuality be changed?

Certainly. As noted above, many people have turned away from homosexuality - almost as many people call themselves "gay."

Clearly the easier problem to eliminate is homosexual behavior. Just as many heterosexuals control their desires to engage in premarital or extramarital sex, so some with homosexual desires discipline themselves to abstain from homosexual contact.

One thing seems to stand out: Associations are all-important. Anyone who wants to abstain from homosexual behavior should avoid the company of practicing homosexuals. There are organizations including "ex-gay ministries, " (18) designed to help those who wish to reform their conduct. Psychotherapy claims about a 30% cure rate, and religious commitment seems to be the most helpful factor in avoiding homosexual habits.

This is AMERICA and people have rights here.

Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 US 186 (1986)

After being charged with violating the Georgia statute criminalizing sodomy by committing that act with another adult male in the bedroom of his home, respondent Hardwick (respondent) brought suit in Federal District Court, challenging the constitutionality of the statute insofar as it criminalized consensual sodomy. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, holding that the Georgia statute violated respondent's fundamental rights.

Held: The Georgia statute is constitutional. Pp. 190-196 .

(a) The Constitution does not confer a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy. None of the fundamental rights announced in this Court's prior cases involving family relationships, marriage, or procreation bear any resemblance to the right asserted in this case. And any claim that those cases stand for the proposition that any kind of private sexual conduct between consenting adults is constitutionally insulated from state proscription is unsupportable. Pp. 190-191 .

(b) Against a background in which many States have criminalized sodomy and still do, to claim that a right to engage in such conduct is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" is, at best, facetious. Pp. 191-194 .

(c) There should be great resistance to expand the reach of the Due Process Clauses to cover new fundamental rights. Otherwise, the Judiciary necessarily would take upon itself further authority to govern the country without constitutional authority. The claimed right in this case falls far short of overcoming this resistance. Pp. 194-195 .

(d) The fact that homosexual conduct occurs in the privacy of the home does not affect the result. Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 , distinguished. Pp. 195-196 .

(e) Sodomy laws should not be invalidated on the asserted basis that majority belief that sodomy is immoral is an inadequate rationale to support the laws. P. 196 .

760 F.2d 1202, reversed. [p*187]

BURGER, C.J., Concurring Opinion

As the Court notes, ante at 192 , the proscriptions against sodomy have very "ancient roots." Decisions of individuals relating to homosexual conduct have been subject to state intervention throughout the history of Western civilization. Condemnation of those practices is firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards. Homosexual sodomy was a capital crime under Roman law. See Code Theod. 9.7.6; Code Just. 9.9.31. See also D. Bailey, Homosexuality [p*197] and the Western Christian Tradition 70-81 (1975). During the English Reformation, when powers of the ecclesiastical courts were transferred to the King's Courts, the first English statute criminalizing sodomy was passed. 25 Hen. VIII, ch. 6. Blackstone described "the infamous crime against nature" as an offense of "deeper malignity" than rape, a heinous act "the very mention of which is a disgrace to human nature," and "a crime not fit to be named." 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *215. The common law of England, including its prohibition of sodomy, became the received law of Georgia and the other Colonies. In 1816, the Georgia Legislature passed the statute at issue here, and that statute has been continuously in force in one form or another since that time. To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.

This is essentially not a question of personal "preferences," but rather of the legislative authority of the State. I find nothing in the Constitution depriving a State of the power to enact the statute challenged here.