SCOTUS strikes down Texas sodomy ban

FOXnews

[Sparta]

You are absolutely correct in all your posts on this thread.

[Sparta]

Should the people of Texas have the right to legalize marijuana?

Or, better yet, outlaw alcohol.

Yes and yes. Now flame away.

[Redcloak]

Those are clearly 4th amendment matters. No one was argueing that money laudering and terrorist conspiracies should be legal, rather the methods that the government uses to enforce those laws run afoul of the 4th amendment. If there is probable cause, a warrant can be obtained and the information obtained. But they have to first have the probable cause, they can't just "go fishing" for it.

Exactly. The problem for conservatives comes in finding a clever way to guarantee privacy for one area of life while denying it in another. Quite simply, they cannot have their cake and eat it too. The kind of invasive government they need to stop rampant buggery would also go prying into their bank accounts, gun safes, bookshelfs, etc.. Personally, I'm willing to let the neighbors carry on like crazed weasels if that's what it takes to keep Uncle out of my affairs.

[Sparta]

Ya'll's devotion to one another is admirable. It brings tears to my eyes, it does...

There will be no civil comments on this thread. Just nothing but ad hominem and demagogery. Get with the program. :)

[Sparta]

I've always wondered one thing about you Kevin, did a libertarian steal your prom date in high school?

[El Gato]

taxes will sucked out Intravenously .

what do you mean "will"? As far as I can tell, they mostly already are.

[Redcloak]

You need to consider the 9th and 10th Amendments in light of the 14th. The 14th modifies them. Prior to the passage of the 14th, one could argue that there was a Federal right to buggery under the 9th Amendment, but that the restriction against legal infringement did not apply to the States. In fact, the 10th guaranteed their power to regulate such matters. However, the 14th changes that. Rights guaranteed against Federal instrusion are also guaranteed against State infringment.

[jejones]

"Right to Privacy... let's see, Right to Privacy..."
Hmm....Don't seem to really find that in the Constitution....

I recall that one of the arguments against the Bill of Rights was that people would think that only rights explicitly enumerated existed. The Ninth Amendment was supposed to prevent that, but evidently it doesn't always work.

[El Gato]

are the johns of whores "ill?" There's no "victim" there, either--except for the people who have to live in the neighborhood where these crimes occur

Those victims are caused by the illegality of it, not by prostitution itself. The prostitutes themselves are the victims, but again of the illegality. If the practice were legal, as it is in some places, you wouldn't have (nearly) the explotation and other problems.

I tend to go along with the homosexuallity as defect notion, which would lead to the decriminalization of it, but the homosexuals themselves do not, understandably I guess.

[tpaine]

The states have never had the power to prohibit such [sinful] activities, under our constitution.
Took a long time to establish this principle, but here we are.
1,278 -tpaine -

Under the 10th amendment, the states retain whatever powers they had and are not explicitly forbidden to exercise. Where are they explicitly forbidden to exercise the power to proscribe certain types of sexual conduct?

Where were they ever given such power? I see no such grants in state constitutions, and there is certainly no such federal power. Certainly, the colonies had 'sin' laws, but we fought a revolution to gain freedom from such arbitrary rules.

Since you said never, you must refrain from pointing to the 14th amendment, since that wasn't passed until after the civil war.

The 14th was passed to remedy the erronious Barron decision. The Constitution & BOR's have aways been the supreme Law of the Land, as per Art VI.

However I don't think even the 14th amendment prevents them from passing such laws.

Why do you fight the clear intent of ALL of our founding principles? I don't 'get' it.

That doesn't mean I necessarily think such laws are a good idea, Justice Thomas doesn't think so either and in general I tend to agree, mainly on enforceability grounds.

You have a real problem.
I suggest you give it more thought as to why you think states need prohibitive powers.

[puroresu]

It doesn't work that way. The more "sexually liberated" a society gets, the bigger and more intrusive its government gets. Government was smaller, less intrusive, and taxes were lower back in the sexually conservative fifties.

The sexual revolution of the sixties sparked the biggest expansion of government we've ever had, even bigger than the New Deal.

Look at Europe. Is sexually libertine Sweden a haven for low taxes and gun ownership and property rights? No, it's the opposite.

Sexual libertinism causes government intrusiveness to increase. That's why "liberals" and socialists are sexually "libertarian".

Show me a society with legal abortion, legal gay marriage, legal gay sodomy, legal pornography, and a generally "open" attitude toward sex, and I'll show you a society with astronomical taxes, fanatically strict regulations on private property, rabid levels of gun control, wall to wall socialism, and tons of restrictions on political dissent and speech.

Alexis de Tocqueville was correct when he associated America's freedom and success with it's high moral standards. As we've lost those standards, government has grown exponentially.

[RAT Patrol]

You are wrong on both counts (and I agree with you pretty much 100% of the time). You've got him all wrong.

[jwalsh07]

:-} No problem, I agree with you most times as well.

[RAT Patrol]

Further, if he were on the SC he would vote against everything you hold dear. He would do it while lying to you about it, too.

[Redcloak]

You're mistaking association with causality. There's no way to show that loose sexual mores cause socialist governments. The Taliban, the Saudis, and a host of other nations all run horribly instrusive governments. They also enforce a sexual morality that would make some FReepers swoon.

[jwalsh07]

Nope, We're gonna have to agree to disagree here. Torie, like you, is my friend here at FR. We diverge on the social issues but he has always been very honest with me. I truat that he would follow the Constitution assiduously.

But, unless you know something I don't, he's not likely to be there in this lifetime.

[El Gato]

By insisting on separation of church and state, the Founding Fathers were making it clear that religion had no place in the government of this country.

But they never did that. What they did was say that the federal government could not force one to take up a particular religion, and what they meant was a particular denomination, nor could they probit anyone from practicing whatever religion they chose. They did not forbid religous ideas from affecting the governance of the land.

This issue goes way beyond any particular religion. It may be a matter of public health. Like quarentining those with TB or smallpox. Or requiring that latrines be dug downstream from the source of drinking water. Many religous "Laws" are really only distillations of folk wisdom, which came from obervation of actions and consequences. That same folk wisdom may be allowed to illuminate modern law making. At least it's based on observations and not "feelings".

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

In other words, you have the right to choose your own path.

Retained is a key word here. The right must have been in existance for it to be protected by the 9th amendment and by extension the 14th as applied to the states. The 10th amendment protects us against exercise of powers not granted. For similar protection from state governments exercising powers not granted, we must look to our state constitutions. Even that is a little tricky, because the enforcement of Common law and the police power belongs to the States, not the federal govenemnt, absent explicit provisions to the contrary.

Botom line, is that many, myself included, do not think that homosexual activity is a "freedom afforded by the Constitution". If nothing else this case stands for the proposition that the Constitution means whatever the Supreme Court says it means, regardless of the words on parchment written (mostly) by bunch of dead white guys.

Unfortunatley for that position, many, including myself, have taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution, againtt all enemies, foreign and domestic" and that may include Supreme Court Justices. The written words have meaning and for most part they aren't even difficult to understand. Even the ones that are a little hard to understand, can be comprehended by reading the words of those that crafted them, and those that oppossed them as well.

[El Gato]

ROTFLAMAO. The second amendment is not about any right to serve in the military, or even the organized militia. By it's own words its about the "right of the people to keep and bear arms". The power to raise and support armies is granted in the main body of the Constitution, as is the power to define the rules for governance of the military and of the militia, but the latter only when in actual service.

[El Gato]

While Kennedy cited Roe, what is so interesting about this decision, is that it backed away from the right to privacy concept. The rationale of this decision, along with Griswald and Roe in a repackaging effort, were wrapped in a yet even broader and more vague concept about the due process right to liberty where its exercise is fundamental to the person. No, I am not making this up.

What's worse, IMHO they cited decisions by the European Court of Human Rights, and the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. Short quote below:

And, to the extent Bowers relied on values shared with a wider civilization, the case's reasoning and holding have been rejected by the European Court of Human Rights, and that other nations have taken action consistent with an affirmation of the protected right of homosexual adults to engage in intimate, consensual conduct