I find this pretty disturbing. Especially since they were “doing it” in their own home. What exactly would “public morals” be? They sure weren’t in public when they committed this ‘crime’, and their acts didn’t disturb anyone. I also don’t find being homosexual immoral (maybe someone could challenge my view on that).
When I hear some say being gay is “immoral”, I’m reminded of those people who want kids to be taught morals in school. I can see it now, teachers teaching kids it is wrong to be gay. I wonder how well that would work.
This says everything you need to know about Texas. The Supreme Court actually UPHELD this same barbaric law in 1986 (ah, the Reagan years) on the grounds that individual states have the right to pass sodomy laws. The fact that the SC has now agreed to review this law again, and has explicitly said that they will considering overturning the law indicates to me that the Court is telegraphing a current belief that the '86 decision was mistake, and that sodomy laws like this will shortly be history. at least I surea s hell hope so.
The fact that the state of Texas would even attempt to enforce a law like this in the 21st century is the strongest argument I can think of for a forced seccession from the union.
The other question I’m never able to get a straight answer for is it the gender of the people doing it or the act itself that these moralists find so disgusting? After all, straight people have anal sex, oral sex, etc. too. Is it that you don’t like the image of a penis entering an anus that’s the problem, or that both people have a penis?
My position: Anything a person/persons want to do in privacy and of their own free will should be legal as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. However, as soon as you cross that line, it’s time for the full weight of the law.
I’m pretty sure the sodomy laws were directed straight at gays, but to say so would have been much too direct and may have (gasp) shocked some people! So, though technically heteros could be brought up on charges of sodomy, only homos ever are. I think it’s totally ridiculous. IMHO, anything 2 or more consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home is none of my business, and certainly not that of the state!
It’s one thing to think a law is wrong. It’s quite another to think that it’s unconstitutional, and that judges can strike it down as such.
What I find Orwellian is the claim that the state is upholding “morality.” I find the state’s conduct immoral, not the other way around: why does it have any more legitimate right to claim to be an expert on what is moral than I do? Sure, they can exercise their power to make people jump through hoops, or force them to bow to the wishes of a majority. While I am against that, I wont deny that they have such powers. But to try to justify these actions by claiming to be authoritative arbiters of what is moral is truly abhorrent to me. Nothing at all: certainly no constitution, gives them such a power or an authority.
Just watched a debate between-get this-Jerry Falwell and Barney Frank. Talk about two people coming from irreconcilable viewpoints!
Anyway, I learned that nobody reported the poor guys or anything like that for sex; the cops had received a report about a burglary at there, and that’s why they burst in.
“State sodomy laws have been on the books for a century or more, and define the act as abnormal sex, including oral [sex] [SUP][SUB]Bolding mine[/sub][/sup]”
Bloody hell! Remind me to never, ever move to TX. :rolleyes:
I’ve got news for you. Several states, e.g. Arizona and Virginia, have laws on the book prohibiting heterosexual oral sex and anal sex, too! :eek:
And in Virginia, even straight penis-vagina sex is considered illegal fornication if the couple isn’t married. Remember the “Virginia is for Lovers” tourism slogan? I’ll bet Virginia was just using that as an excuse for a sting operation.
Allowed? No one, nor any state, has the right to determine for citizens what is “moral” sexually between (or among) consenting adults.
Of course the law referred to in the OP is in Texas, where it’s okay for corporate executives of the same sex to fk their customers as long as they don’t fk each other. Them Texans know whut’s right, yessir!
This brings up another pretty basic premise of the law of which I am sadly uninformed. According to the CNN article linked above, police entered the home on an erroneous emergency call, without a warrant.
Now, I’ve seen stories enough times to know that the police can charge someone with a crime in their own home under such conditions, but I’m a little unclear as to how. I keep thinking about fruit of the poisonous tree and all that. What is the distinction between “accidental” and “illegal” entry?
Seriously, if it’s that easy to bust into someone’s house and nail them for a completely unrelated crime, how come law enforcement isn’t regularly grabbing search warrants on people who haven’t paid their state taxes and then “accidentally” knocking down the door of the neighboring crack dealer?
And yes, you can count me among those who are amused that it’s the “don’t mess with us” state that’s arguing this most invasive of cases. I suppose this an example of two very different types of conservatism hitting each other in the political intersection.
What kind of redneck asshole cops would even feel the NEED to arrest asomebody for this. Imagine some cops busting into the wrong house and discovering a husband and wife in an intimate moment. Then, instead of apologizing for their mistake and leaving, they throw them up against the wall and bust them for some imagined “perversion.” Public outrage would be massive.
This is disgusting behavior by the cops, and it is even more appalling that prosecutors would pursue a case which so clearly insults all sense of privacy and human dignity. What does it say about Texas that its citizens seem to see nothing remarkable about this? Does anyone know what W has to say about all this?
Diogenes you can just back right the fuck off with the attitude that each and every Texan feels this prosection, and this law, is just and should be held personally accountable for this situation. There are hundreds of stupid laws on the books in EVERY state. People may or may not know about them but they don’t bother cleaning them up because they’re hardly ever enforced and the legislatures typically have enough to deal with each session already. When they are enforced, as in this case, it’s typically beneath the public’s radar. I’m pretty well-read and I’d never heard of it. I think it’s fair to say the average Texan hasn’t either.
This law, in the eyes of myself and a great many other Texans, was like the law about not driving your car down a city street because it might spook the horses. A relic, a laughable relic of another age. What happened here was unusual because the cops enforced the law. It wasn’t “wrong” per se. That’s what they do. Cops enforce laws, they don’t interpret them and they aren’t supposed to make exceptions. So what you have here, instead of bad cops, could be EXCELLENT cops. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my cops to stop and ponder constitutional issues before they take action to arrest someone commiting a legal offense(and in this case they weren’t arrested. Sodomy in Texas is a class C misdemeanor, same as a traffic ticket. No jailtime, no heavy fines). The offense may be stupid and completely outdated, but it’s still on the books. Ditto for the prosecuting attorney, and possibly the first round of judges. None of those people are supposed to judge the constitutionality of the law. If it went all the way to the SC then that definitely speaks poorly of the SC and whoever put those justices there, but until that point it’s hard to distinguish between people who were doing their job in a poor, outmoded system and redneck asshole bigots. Your jumping to the “redneck asshole” conclusion says a more about you than these people’s actions say about the entire population of Texas. Texas is one of the few states which elects its higher court justices, so the voters do bear some responsibility, but the majority of it rests on long-dead voters and the legislature they elected when the law was passed over a hundred years ago.
Do I disagree with continuing to charge people with this crime? Hell yes! Do I think it’s the fault of the officers/prosecutors/lower court judges? Possibly, but they did the “right”(according to the law) thing. So they were all either asshole bigots or candidates for cop of the year. Doing their job to uphold even laws they may personally consider stupid and outdated. Probably trusting to the higher courts to strike the law down(or, if your assesment of Texans is more accurate than mine) praying the higher courts would uphold it.
There’s another possibility you’ve glossed over in your screed against the Texans. Have you considered the arrested couple may have called in that burglary report INTENDING to be arrested and thereby challenge this law? That they understood the law would probably stay on the books forever unless it was challenged? If this was their intent then they took a minimal risk for a potential major payoff. They were fined $200 and they got the SC’s attention! Their case may overturn the remaining sodomy laws in the entire US.
Actually, I’ve heard that the neighbor who called it in knew they were having sex. He specifically said “burglary” because with a burglary report, the police can enter immediately on grounds of protecting lives and property. And people have already tried the approach you mentioned.
So we’ve got a choice between the entire state being rabid homophobes, from the cops to the prosecutors to the highest state courts and a majority on the SCotUS; or extremely sneaky homosexuals in cahoots with a neighbor to call in a false alarm so they’d be charged under an ancient statute almost no one is ever charged under(and one with a very minor penalty) in order to have the law challenged(and quite cleverly, the last case was compounded by the whole “privacy” thing, this case avoids those pesky complications which may give homophobes an ‘out’). Man, William of Ockham is spinning in his grave over this one.
The truth, as usual, is likely somewhere in the middle.