Liberal little devils down there in Texas!!

[_Schadenfreude_]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3022026.stm

[JimBear]

er was the U.S. Supreme Court that made that decision

[Eagler]

"hookem horns"  

[Mark Luper]

Come on over here Shad, I don't think you will find much liberal thinking out here, at least I don't notice that much of it. (May be some closet liberals hanging around)

[StSanta]

I saw one who opposes this saying 'this opens the door for legalisation of incest yadda yadda' - basically saying it's a slippery slope. His argument was that this ruling basically would allow anything between consenting adults.

One of the church leaders argued that the ruling would make the country less moral and that 'right' and 'wrong' now no longer were concepts used in US courts.

Both go too far I think. Whatever you do with your partner in bed is your own thing. I sure as hell don't find homosexual sex appealing (not even amongst women) but it's not my perogative to tell others what to do in their bedroom.

OTOH, in the US there are lots of bedroom laws. I had a list before - in some states only certain positions were legal etc. So they aren't realyl enforced - or rather, they weren't until that much published episode where a jealous lover called to say someone was being attacked at his ex boyfriends place and the cops busted in and found two mens having sex. Heh. The two were prosecuted which I think lead to gay right activists getting in the spotlight and managing to push the case to the Supreme Court. Seems those that wanted to prevent it sort of screwed it up.

So, if the gay right people wanted EQUAL rights, then they should go fight those laws who target and opress heterosexual couples as well! Failing to do so would leave the gay people with more rights, and...that ain't...equal...

Anyway. So two dudes or girls have anal sex. Anatomically speaking, there's very little difference between the anus of a man and the anus of a woman. Which of course leads to some disturbing conclusions I won't bring up .

Will only say that from an objective, technical point of view, it's just as 'unnatural' (one argument against) for a heterosexual couple to have anal sex as it is for a homosexual couple. So, either it's allowed for both or for none - can't ahve double standards.

[Arfann]

The fact that I spent the last four days in (miserably hot and muggy) Dallas has absolutely nothing to do with the SC decision in regards to sodomy. I was there on business. . . . . . really.

[Sabre]

I read somewhere that most sodomy laws still on the books make no distinction between homesexuals and non-homosexuals; i.e. sodomy is sodomy, regardless of the sex of those performing it.

Personally, I have to agree with Justice Scalia, who said in his descenting position that this case had no business being heard by the Supreme Court in the first place.  It had nothing to do with the constituition, did not involve a conflict between two states or between a state and the federal government.  It is a case of trying to use the High Court to make law, instead of interpret its constitutionality.  It also involves it in what is in escence a cultural war, rather than constitutional conflict.  We have plenty of laws on the books that are in effect legislating morality (incest, child pornography laws, pedophilia, etc); when society decides such acts are no longer harmful to society, they should go to their legislature and demand to have them changed.  That's how it is supposed to work.  If you don't have the political base to make that happen, it means you're in the minority, which means the law continues to reflect the moral position of society...period.

[Erlkonig]

The SCOTUS clearly took sides in the "culture war" in Brown vs. Board of Education as well.  In that case, and this one as well, the result is clearly worth the reasoning it took to overturn existing law.

[Arfann]

This judgement was based on a case which came about when officers of the law responded to a false report of a burglary in progress and caught two adults engaged in consentual sex in the privacy of their home. It is unfortunate that it was necessary to take it to the highest court in the land to make it right.

[Tumor]

Who cares?  The only thing I care about now is having to change the channel every time I see some gay spouting neener neener on national T.V.


(edit) hmmm... after seeing the basis for the case, I agree with the reasoning, but the above still stands.

[Sabre]

Here is the link for the Supreme Court's findings, including the dessenting opinion. ( http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/lawrence_v_texas.pdf )  The dissenting opinion states pretty well why this case should not have been brought before the court, and why it does not stand up to the rules used in overturning a landmark case some years ago that upheld morality laws.  He points out that Roe vs. Wade comes closer to meeting those tests than does this case.  He also notes that the ruling in this case:

State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult
incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication,
bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices.
Every single one of these laws is called into question by
today’s decision; the Court makes no effort to cabin the
scope of its decision to exclude them from its holding.

And Gronk, if the officers had broke in and found these two, or any two people doing drugs, they would be arrested and charged.  It is not the Court's job to decide if sodomy is a crime.

Here’s a few other sanguine quips from Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion:

Constitutional entitlements do not spring into existence because some States choose to lessen or eliminate criminal sanctions on certain behavior. Much less do they spring into existence, as the Court seems to believe, because foreign nations decriminalize conduct.

What Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional democratic action, and its hand should not be stayed through the invention of a brand-new “constitutional right” by a Court that is impatient of democratic change. It is indeed true that “later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress,” ante, at 18; and when that happens, later generations can repeal those laws. But it is the premise of our system that those judgments are to be made by the people, and not imposed by a governing caste that knows best.

He ends his comments with the following, which summarizes why he feels this decision was wrong:

The matters appropriate for this Court’s resolution are only three: Texas’s prohibition of sodomy neither infringes a “fundamental right” (which the Court does not dispute), nor is unsupported by a rational relation to what the Constitution considers a legitimate state interest, nor denies the equal protection of the laws. I dissent.