No, but it has approved a principle that can very easily be applied to some if not all of the less savory practices you list. Which is not unlike what happened in the busing cases.**
It defies reality to suggest that the lower courts will do crazy shit? Read some 9th Circuit or 4th Circuit opinions sometime (depending on your political proclivities). I think it defies reality to suggest they won’t do crazy shit.
And as you’re so fond of noting, this is not exactly an active Supreme Court. How many cert petitions get picked up for review again?
A corpse is not a consenting adult. Neither is an animal.
The laws against Bestiality and Corpse fucking will still remain in effect, and your chicken little style “sky is falling” predictions will come NOT come to fruition.
Society will not collapse because two enthusiastically consenting grown men can express their love for each other in a physical manner in the confines of their own home.
And if you think democracy is “thwarted” because of this…
I’m sympathetic. Really, I am. Poor Texas! I’m playing a tiny violin for you right now. A tear is rolling down my cheek because your sacred right to throw queers in jail has been violated. :rolleyes:
I’m working from memory here, but I suspect quite strongly that the reasoning that follows is true:
Regardless of the questions about consent (a pre-mortem letter? bad zombie jokes?), the issue of title to the body of the deceased has been addressed in the courts, thanks to families at odds with the will of the deceased as regards its disposal. And the title to the corpse resides in the estate of the deceased, not in his/her next of kin. Though in the absence of a will, they are empowered to act in accordance with standards of public decency to arrange for its disposal.
Ergo, because the body belongs to the estate of the person who occupied it before death, and that estate cannot consent to a use for it contrary to public policy, the person wishing to have sex with it is restrained from doing so by a lack of consent. (Presuming that necrophilia remains contrary to public policy, a presumption I don’t expect to seriously see challenged! ;))
So you say. What if it’s just a big piece of dead meat, no worse than fucking a warm apple pie?
But like I said, I agree that necrophilia is an unlikely candidate for constitutional protection, for reasons already discussed. The things that are more likely to end up protected are adult incest, adultery, and possibly Heidi Fleiss style prostitution.
What if the person expresses a desire to be a sex toy in his or her will after they pass on?***** What if the administrator of their estate consents?
You’re right that it’s “against public policy,” but ignoring any possible public health rationale it’s against public policy for purely moral reasons. If purely moralistic reasons are an insufficient public policy to invade private sexual choices (as the court held today), then sex with a consenting corpse might well be constitutionally protected. And of course that assumes the corpse is more than a hunk o’ meat necessitating consent in the first place.
(Again, I don’t see this actually happening. But it’s a fun point to argue).
There have been requests more fucked up than this in past wills. When I was taking Wills & Estates in law school, there was an example in the casebook of one guy who wanted his skin removed and used as a bookbinding for his memoirs. No cite, but I swear I am not making it up. I’m not that creative.
The arguments put forth by opponents of gay rights frankly baffle me. It doesn’t take a whole lot of brainstorming to see significant differences between private adult sexual conduct and bestiality and corpse raping.
Scalia and his ilk to stain at a gnat, and swallow a camel, pretending there is no material differences between homosexuality and the laundry list of horrors that they insist await us in the future as a result of this decision. Their obtuseness and myopia are made abundantly clear.
There are problematic consent issues on the part of the corpse, plus the issues of corpse “ownership” which I believe can convincingly justify a blanket ban on corpse screwing notwithstanding issues of sexual freedom.
I see this as a reasonable inference, but I don’t see why that’s a problem. What right does a state have to prevent these things (assuming that the same right to privacy would obtain in these cases as it does in L&G V. Texas)?
Dewey, you are more than welcome to fuck your own apple pie, but I’d have objections to your fucking my apple pie. (Although if we can get enough paying customers to watch you do it, I might very well reconsider! ;))
Much the same argument applies to the point I was trying to make. Title to the corpse resides in the estate of the deceased, and that estate is prevented from violating public policy in its disposition – regardless of the wishes of the deceased. If a man stated in his will that he wishes his penis to be preserved erect by a taxidermist and given to his wife for use as a dildo, I presume that that provision would be declared contrary to public policy and disregarded (even if his widow wants it!).
If you choose to assume a shift in public policy to the point that necrophilia becomes publicly acceptable, you’re free to do so. I’m trying to work from the basis of the law as it is currently expounded, taking into account Lawrence and the concerns you raised on its implications.
Is there any remote chance we can get back to the implications of Lawrence for the lives of gay men and women, as opposed to pederasts, necrophiliacs, adulterous pedophile necrophiliacs, persons who masturbate while looking at pictures of Justice Scalia, and other perversions?
LORD! If I had seen such a thing, I might find some relief by gouging out my eyes, but Nooooooooo. What is one to do? Snort a mixture of LSD and Drano?
If in the fact the privacy right does exist and is now being solidifed, just out of curiousity, what’s to stop a one justice majority from overturning:
Local & State & Income Tax Laws
Medicare & Social Security tax withholdings
Commerce Regulations
and a whole host of other laws that some civil libertarians could argue are just as much of a Government infringement on personal privacy?