SCOTUS strikes down Texas sodomy ban

FOXnews

[Thane_Banquo]

SCOTUS sided with the perverts.

[wimpycat]

I've got a whole repertoire I know by heart. Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, Sr., Marty Robbins, George Jones--all my dad's favorites. Don't make me have to use them.

[tpaine]

Had you only ended it with something profound like "nyah nyah"... it might have been one for posterity.
1,114 -OWK-


"Neener neener" is prefered by the smart suhks set..

[jmc813]

Don't bring that up. The Christian Socialists don't like to talk about the pesky facts of heterosexual sodomy.

[68 grunt]

The Liberals and Libertarians are both in bed on this issue, cheering judicial legislation.

And laughing at you and all the rest of you busybodies with your knickers in a knot. Your panic, ranting and raving is music to my ears. Please continue.

[Dead Corpse]

Stoners? Could be. I haven't actually met a (L)ibertarian in person who openly claimed to smoke dope. Most of 'em are actually democrats.

[HumanaeVitae]

Of course you do. Nobody owns you. You don't even need a reason. Secede all you want.

Congratulations freeee. You have just refuted libertarianism for me.

Effectively what you have just conceded is that people have a right to associate with people they wish, which should be obvious for a libertarian, right? Actually, this is a huge problem for strict libertarianism. Case in point:

Let's build a primitive society. A thousand people. They're all living together because they agree on basic standards of conduct, speak the same language, and so on. In other words, they like associating with each other. They share a small public infrastructure, a system of laws and so on. They are living together, of course, because people cannot live in a state of nature by themselves. They need to cooperate. Libertarians would obviously agree with this, because one of the fundamental truths of capitalism is the division of labor, i.e. people specialize in what they are good at. So you have this small, homogenous, cooperative society that is surviving pretty well.

Now, let's say that two percent of the society starts engaging in homosexuality. All men. And by doing so they insult the informal, voluntary rule-structure of society. This society has deemed homosexual sodomy to be taboo because it is a) dangerous to those participating in it, and thus costs this society in terms of having some of its members sick (lowering productivity and thus making everyone work harder, kind of like homosexuals today spread the cost of their perversion over society), and b) represents a violation of the informal understanding amongst this small society that heterosexual marriage and monogamy is the norm. This behavior damages society in that way because it breaks a taboo of society, namely that sex is for procreation inside of monogamous marriage. And the 'village elders' know from experience that if that taboo is broken, then heterosexuals will start engaging in non-marital, non-monogamous sex, and cause all kinds of other problems such as adulterous relationships, children born out of wedlock and so on. Therefore, the society itself has put it's own taboo on homosexuality (voluntarily) because it is detrimental to the whole.

So, the 'village elders', along with the rest of the 'village', come to these 30 homosexual men and tell them that their behavior is negatively affecting the community. It is causing problems, and the village wants them to stop. The men say, 'no, we have a right to engage in this behavior, and we don't think we're hurting anyone'. The village elders reply, 'Well, we think you are hurting us, by hurting our society. We don't want to punish you, but we don't want you around. We don't want to freely associate with you. Either you stop doing what you're doing, or you leave the village'.

So, the homosexual men have a problem here. They don't want to stop buggering each other, but they know full well that if they continue, they will be thrown out of society. They could choose to leave the society, and go it alone, but they also know that they'd probably die because the behavior that they engage in is inherently destructive. So, they know that they can't live without society, and society can live without them and their destructive behavior that is hurting society. Society is asking them to make a voluntary choice. If they choose buggery, they get banished to the wilderness to die. If they choose to give up buggery, they get to live.

Note, society is coercing these 30 homosexuals into stopping their behavior. Their choice is either heterosexuality and life, or going out into the state of nature to continue their homosexuality and death. But, they also have a free choice. It's up to them. Society has already spoken. Under the libertarian construction of things, the society--as a voluntary association of individuals, freely making the choice to associate with one another--has a perfect, libertarian right to determine who has 'membership' in the 'club'. They've decided that homosexuals do not qualify for membership. Homosexuals desperately want in the 'club', primarily because being in the club means safety and security, but they don't want to give up their homosexual behavior.

So, on one side of the debate, we have the 'right to free association', and on the other side of the debate we have the 'right to homosexual sex'. The homosexuals can't live without the heterosexuals, but the heterosexuals can easily live without the homosexuals. And the heterosexuals don't want to be around homosexuals. And this, my dear, is where libertarianism collapses. Because just as you can assert the 'right to homosexual sex', I can just as easily assert the 'right to free association', i.e. not be affected whatsoever by homosexuals. And both are equally valid, under the libertarian construction.

So, really if the homosexuals want all the great benefits of society, they have to give up their behavior. But the heterosexuals don't need to do anything. They'll just keep on keepin' on and not think a thing of it. The way this plays out in this debate today is that homosexuals tell us they have a 'right' to engage in their behavior, which is uniformly destructive and anti-social. I would like to assert my 'right' to tell them otherwise, but unfortunately what the SCOTUS told us today is not that homosexuals have a 'right' to engage in their behavior, but that society doesn't have a 'right' to stop it. And how would we know if the village (the people of Texas) approve or disapprove of homosexual sodomy? By voting, of course, through the elected representatives of the state of Texas. Basically, all the SCOTUS did today was disenfranchise Texas voters to please the PC cops.

Libertarianism is untenable. You assert a 'right' pro, I assert a 'right' contra. And because there's no way to know who's right and who's wrong in any objective way, it all comes down to power. In my example above, society had the power to dictate to the homosexuals. In Lawrence v. Texas, a pro-homosexual SCOTUS used their power to dictate to the people of Texas on behalf of the homosexuals. In other words, the homosexuals just hired some muscle. That's it.

Cheer your 'win', libertarians. It is suitably appropriate that the libertarian version of 'liberty' only works when it's being shoved on people by autocratic judicial diktat.

[Dead Corpse]

Change society for their selfish needs.

Yeah!!! Who the hell needs all that "freedom" stuff anyway.

Moron...

[Clint N. Suhks]

Nuthin like a good brow-beating by Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel, to put the fear of God in ya.

Mark of the true liberal, name calling on the way out, thanks for not disappointing.

[MileHi]

A fine point I guess. The fed said they would ignore state law and arrest anyway. And you cheer. But I concede the SCOTUS has not heard the case yet. I do love to see you WoD cheerleaders pick and choose when you worship Fed power, though.

[MineralMan]

"Don't bring that up. The Christian Socialists don't like to talk about the pesky facts of heterosexual sodomy."

Some do. There's one person here who claims that all oral sexual activity is sinful and against his deity's will. I can't seem to find any support for that point of view in the Bible, but that doesn't stop them.

Still, there are a lot of good ol' boys down in the Bible belt who are committing these heinous felonies with their own wives. Now, if they knew that they could lose their right to own firearms if tried and convicted of sodomy, maybe some of those laws would get repealed.

I guess it all depends on whose ox is being gored, eh?

[RAT Patrol]

let me just put it this way - your desire to use the apparatus of the state to force others to live by your particular religious view of sexual morality is bad.

Clever, though terribly hypocritical. At least you are admitting that there is at least one moral absolute and it is bad. What gives you the right to say that?

BTW, I am not asking anyone to live according to my particular religious views. Nice try at changing the subject. The Constitution doesn't say there must be a separation of morality and state. Our Founders wanted moral laws.

Are you for banning taxpayer dollars from being used to research, fund, educate, etc...about these bedroom activities?

[jmc813]

You must be thrilled that Jim Robinson considers Libertarians "our good friends".

[jwalsh07]

The Christian Socialists don't like to talk about the pesky facts of heterosexual sodomy

The decision wasn't based in "equal protection", it was based in policy and the right to privacy found in the Roe and Doe penumbra.

Overall, a good day for judicial activism and proponents of a strong central government.

A bad day for federalists and freedom.

[jethropalerobber]

It was put in juvenile language, but the point remains. If you look at the map where sodomy laws include both heterosexual and homosexual couples, it's surprising. There are a lot of folks in those states who are committing sodomy on a regular basis, since sodomy definitions generally include oral-genital sexual activity.

i really don't know what antoninus thinks was juvenile about it. i *was* teasing him a bit, but i was also being very serious in pointing out that most hetero's in my conservative home state of utah do not even realize oral sex is, or rather was, illegal.

they will be much more shocked by that revelation, than to learn gays now have the same privacy rights that they assumed we all had all along (if you follow).

[Clint N. Suhks]

Yeah!!! Who the hell needs all that "freedom" stuff anyway.

We've done just fine so far, thank God you Liberaltarians are still the irrelevant 2% of the population.

Moron...

Look OWK, another liberal like you. No argument neeeded.

[Thane_Banquo]

I do not believe state legislatures should pass laws against private, consensual sex when no money is involved, but I also do not believe the federal courts have the Constitutional power to regulate in this area. Even though I agree with the ends, I disagree with the means.

If the 14th amendment is meant to protect a broad continuum of rights, then who defines these supposedly self-evident rights? The liberals have since FDR claimed people have the right to freedom from want, which they have used to justify state-sponsored plunder and redistribution.

I believe if any branch of government is to define what the 9th amendment means by other rights, it should be the voters themselves and their elected representatives, not unelected justices.

I trust the people more than some elite.

[tpaine]

Gibberish.

[Thane_Banquo]

That ban exists as a matter of federal law -- 10 U.S.C. 654 -- and presumably can be overruled by a decision of the Supreme Court

I believe the Constitution states that the military code of conduct is not subject to the same Constitutional restrictions as the rest of federal law, and I also believe court cases have upheld this view.

[GSWarrior]

Some folks are so repressed they can't even spell "sucks" correctly.

[Dead Corpse]

Don't make me have to use them.

Hank Sr? Now that is old school.

"There's a tear in my beer cause I'm crying for you,dear
You are on my lonely mind
Into these last few beers, I have shed a million tears
You are on my lonely mind..."

Everybody sing!!!