Like someone else said many of us are seeing only choppy quotes taken from the decision. I just looked up Kennedy’s opening remarks in the opinion - that’s what I remembered from the paper:
Liberty protects the person from unwarranted government intrusions into a dwelling or other private places. In our tradition the State is not omnipresent in the home. And there are other spheres of our lives and existence, outside the home, where the State should not be a dominant presence. Freedom extends beyond spatial bounds. Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct. The instant case involves liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions.
Without having much legal terminology at my grasp I’m seeing a pretty large disagreement here. According to the Justices the government is not omnipresent in the home, but a state government can be, if it wishes?
I’m not sure what you’re getting at. My basic point was that there isn’t a right to privacy in the text of the constitution, the court adopted a theory which allows them to create such a right (and, indeed, to write in any provision they fancy into the constitution), and that this is an usurpation of a power properly held by the legislature. More simply: if the constitution’s text doesn’t forbid it, a state can do it; the constitution’s text doesn’t forbid this particular law; ergo, a state can pass it (even though it is a moronic law).
Personally, I’m quite happy for anything that moves towards legalizing gay marriage, and this is a step in the right direction. This is one of the biggest disagreements I have with my party (the overtly religious representation is the other biggie; no platform is perfectly aligned with my beliefs, and this one, despite its shortcomings comes the closest on all other issues) and I’d like to see more Republicans declare the same thing, particularly those we elect. While I’m straight, I have friends who are directly affected by these archaic laws, and given they and millions of others are people I think they ought to be allowed the same freedom of declaring permanent unions that the rest of us have.
Now, I don’t see what the problem is here. “It may be a man inserting his penis in the anus of a 13-year-old, but there is no difference between the two.” What’s the difference?
…Are you not aware that the norm in all human societies is to sexually couple with the opposite sex in order to reproduce?
Do you…not think that homosexuality is a biological condition that is disadvantageous to the continuity of the kind?
[dutchboy208 in responce]
There is no requirement in nature that every member of a species should procreate. In fact, given the exponential increase in world population over the last 20 years, is homosexuality really that bad a thing for the human race? We’re not exactly endangered… and there’s no evidence that are larger percentage exists now than ever before…
Exactly dutchboy. Any hey ** The Ryan**, thanks for the clear thoughts. I would have thanked you earlier but somehow I got cut off. No matter, I asked for a new password and was given one post haste. This is what I was gonna say…
I think that the occurrence of homosexuals in human cultures is probably the most altruistic of all of mother nature’s inventions.
A 3% rate of homosexuality could hardly be maintained through time without the compensating effects of positive contributions to the breeding group at-large. This social contribution is often made through invention and perception with great detriment to the happiness of the homosexual individual whose role in society is most times misunderstood.
And that is sad.
And as to the constitutionality of the sodomy laws, the reach by the Supreme Court is justified by Amendment number Nine, with supporting legal reference to the preamble.
unfortunately, I can’t help you here, I consider myself conservative(definately so by the definition you’re using) and I whole-heartedly support the Supreme Courts decision in this case.
I agree, it shouldn’t matter. As I said (repeatedly), the laws are stupid and immoral. But how can one simultaniously state that two situations are not the same, and yet equal protection should apply. Or are you using a different Constitutional rationale?
How are the situations different? Are you seriously trying to cling to that prostate thing? That’s riidiculous.
Yes, the difference between hetero and homosexual anl intercourse is the sex of the recipient. That’s the whole point of equal protection, that one group can not have differnt rights than another group. Your logic could apply to virtually anything. A woman driving a car isn’t the same as a man driving a car because a woman has a vagina and a man has a dick. The “not the same” part is exactly the point. They can’t be treated differently just because they’re not the same.
I simply do not see any evidence that he wishes to still retain the “bad” meaning. I think that criticizing someone for something which you imagined them to intend is rather silly.
It depends on the context. For instance, if I said that most people buy stamps to pay for postage, and you said “What about stamp collectors?” it would be appropiate for me to say “That’s an aberrance”.
SRVick
Whether it’s discriminatory is irrelevant, because species is not a protected class. If there were a constitutional amendent prohibiting discrimination on the basis of species, then there would be a very strong argument against anti-bestiality laws.
I really don’t see what the problem is that you have. Eqaul protection means exactly that: equal protection. It doesn’t mean equal situations. If equal protection only applied to situations which were exactly the same, then it would be pointless, because in such cases discrimination would already be prohibited by logic.
There’s no explicit wording in the constitution that says I have the right to walk. I suppose under your reasoning a bare majority of the state legislature could declare walking to be immoral and force everyone to crawl on their hands and knees. And the federal courts trying to intervene would be “usurping power” by doing this.
Then all the men in America who have had their prostates removed(not an insignificant number) enjoy a different constitutional standard than the rest of men who retain their prostate?