No legal scholar I, but, yes, my pitiful interpretation of what I have read has led me to conclude this embarassment of a law was constitutional.
SRVick, The differance is consent, a 13 year old cannot give consent. Now how is it different between a man and a woman?
The majority opinion did not use equal protection as a foundation, despite the belief some here seem to have that this is unassailable.
No man can have sex with another man. All men can have sex with women. Where is the equal protection discrepancy? I’m missing it.
Yes, IMO you are correct. That legislature would find their asses tossed out in the next election, you’d probably find little willingness to enforce the law, and the whole unlikely scenario would be a national embarassment. But it would still not be the federal court’s role to correct that particular breed of stupidity, unless there’s a particular constitutional issue in play here that I’m missing.
Which, oddly enough, has absolutely nothing to do with constitutionality.
Come now, sexual organs clearly have to do with a sex act much more than driving a car. Out of town for a week without a computer, so I can’t continue, but **Bob Cos ** seems to be following my line about why it wasn’t the same act.
I think the point is … who cares if it isn’t the same “act”.
Apples aren’t oranges, but they’re both delicious.
Yes they would. Though as a practical matter this would never happen – no legislator who proposed such a thing would be in office very long. Democracy itself is a check against some excesses.
So why the arbitrary groups? Can I apply your reasoning to different groups? Can I say “No white person can have sex with a black person. All black people can have sex with black people.”
Saying, as you are, that as long as a law is applied equally to every person in a particular subset of society it is fair or constitutional makes a mockery of any notion of equal protection.
There was a discrepancy in the fact that all women can have sex with a man if they choose, but men cannot. Why should women get this privelege that men don’t (didn’t)?
And just to answer this question:
To me, it’s that questions of morality are dealt with in the private or personal sphere. They are only the business of those involved. Economic acts usually take place within the public sphere, and hence are the business of society. Of course, it can be in society’s best interest to take a laissez-faire approach to some economic acts.
…which would be equal protection. The law disciminates against homosexuals, not people of one gender or another, but a recognized minority of people who are gay. Had they worded the law differently maybe it would have passed muster, like having sodomy illegal for everyone as it is in MA. (I think.)
But I do like the broader majority opinion in this case because it deals with the matter of “liberty” and the recognition that certain life issues ought not to be subject to government approval. So, I’m having trouble seeing the down side to compromising a state’s right to regulate those same issues.
Then as you say it was: prove it.
As you started in with this train of thought, you are responsible to prove it or retract it.
Prove that anal sex between a man and a woman are conclusively different.
Prove that entry is different.
Prove that effect is different.
Prove that a blindfolded man would know the difference between being inside of a man’s versus a woman’s anus.
Or… retract yoour statement.
Yes, you are.
Why is it equal to say that a man can only have sex with a woman but it is criminal for men to have sex with men or women to have sex with women?
It is not equal.
To say that relations can ONLY be oppposite sex where same sex sexual expression is just as valid and possible is NOT equal and is forcing a point of view and morality on what is considered acceptable.
Then exactly what have I been doing for the past 39.5 years? It sure *seems like * i’ve been having sex. Are you implying that people who have sex exclusively with people of their own gender are all virgins?
…which would not be in play in the “no walking” hypothetical Bob Cos was responding to. **
Sodomy of any kind was not illegal in Massachusetts, even before the court’s decision.
But really, the equal protection argument is irrelevant because that isn’t the rationale the court adopted. Only Justice O’Conner thought that the correct rationale. And I think most conservatives would have been more comfortable with that rationale, because while it is not without its flaws (as Justice Scalia points out in Part V of his dissent), it at least has some tangible connection to the text of the constitution.
A penis in an anus is a penis in an anus. There is no difference in sex organs. Your argument is ridiculous.
[quote]
Originally posted by Bob Cos
No man can have sex with another man.
Are you serious? Can you please give us your definition of “sex?”
DEWEY:
“…But really, the equal protection argument is irrelevant because that isn’t the rationale the court adopted. … it at least has some tangible connection to the text of the constitution.”
I understand the general objection to an “activist court.” But I don’t follow the above-cited quote.
The TEXT of the Constitution refers to unenumerated rights “retained by the people” which are not to be “disparaged.” (Amendment IX) The TEXT of the Constitution refers to powers not delegated to the Federal government being reserved to the various States “…or to the people.” (Amendment X) Note that the “or” entails that the powers reserved to the people are so reserved EXCLUSIVE of any claim to them by the States.
So it’s right there in black and white. As is the statement that the Supreme Court is to try cases arising under the Constitution.
One may find these amendments “silly amendments” (in that they give broad leave to the Court to identify various unenumerated rights and unspecified powers). But the Framers and the Ratifiers were textually empowered to adopt such silly amendments as they pleased.
So exactly how does the Court’s identifying (what Bob Bork likes to term) “a right to commit sodomy” not have a “tangible connection to the Constitution”? I fault the Court for not having made express use of these amendments in its stated reasoning; but the main decision does make a personal liberty argument entirely compatible therewith.
On what grounds do you disagree? (If you’re saying that it gives the Court too much power–that’s not so much a Constitutional argument as a purely results-oriented objection.)
And how would you characterize oral sex? Is there really a substantial difference between a man’s mouth and a woman’s? Why should it be illegal if I get a bj from another man, yet legal if it’s a woman (so long as she isn’t charging for it)?
Now I suppose some idiot will claim that the adam’s apple makes it a different act.
Because we’re mixing questions of Constitutional interpretation with discussion of the Lawrence decision, I’ve started a separate thread for discussion of what constitutes a Constitutional right.
You want me to prove to you that my opinion is that the law in question is constitutional? Um, you’ll have to take my word for it.
If you’re asking me to prove the law was constitutional, that defies a simple proof, by virtue of our own discussion (and the dissent on the SC itself).
I never, ever said it was fair. I said it was constitutional. And, believe me, I’m no constitutional scholar (I just find the topic fascinating).
And this may betray my ignorance (has there been a SC ruling on this?) but I believe that prohibiting mixed race marriages–an equally egregious offense against common sense and decency–would also be constitutional.
I’ll ask again: if equal protection is so obvious and unassailable, why did the majority opinion not use this as a foundation?