Justice Thomas doesn’t talk anymore: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/03/545532/
I would tend to think that Justice Thomas doesn’t like to be judged himself by public opinion.
If you are an activist who tries to undo activism and return things to their original state, then you aren’t really an activist? 
The only difference between Thomas and others with regards to stare decisis is that he is honest about it. Everyone else tries to “distinguish” the facts of this case so that it isn’t really overturning past precedent, although it obviously is. Technically Plessy v. Ferguson is still controlling law, it’s just that all segregation is inherently unequal.
Hell, 6 justices in the case you mentioned (Lawrence v. Texas) had no concern for stare decisis when they overruled Bowers decided less than 20 years before. If respect for precedent is so important, shouldn’t that case have been a 9-0 upholding the sodomy law?
Further, I didn’t get the impression that Thomas hates homosexuals. He stated in his separate dissent that he thought the Texas law was “uncommonly silly” and that if he were a member of the Texas legislature, he would vote to repeal it. But he noted, IMHO quite correctly, that it was absurd to say that the constitution prohibited sodomy laws when they have been around since ancient times. If there is a sea change in public opinion that skews towards making sodomy legal, then the legislature is the place for that…and it was working. 50 states had sodomy laws in 1960, and only a handful had them at the time of Lawrence.
Not according to my source.
In fairness, Thomas wants to reincorporate most of the Bill of Rights via the Privileges and Immunities Clause, which frankly makes much more sense than incorporation via the Due Process Clause.
The only right I’ve seen him write to “reincorporate” is the right to bear arms for citizens. I would be very surprised indeed if he would ever find unenumerated rights like the right to medical decision-making, right to privacy, reproductive freedom, right to travel, right to death, and others, to be protected by the Privileges and Immunities Clause.
That’s been a problem for me with conservative justices. The 9th amendment is pretty clear that our rights are not limited by the Constitution, only the government’s powers are.
I agree, but to use the 9th amendment with any substance would just open a Pandora’s box. A right to jerk off in public? Well, 9th amendment. Throw hand grenades on your own private property? That’s a 9th amendment. Cut down my oak tree with fully automatic BAR fire? You KNOW that’s a 9th amendment.
The Court would have to come up with some limiting mechanism for the 9th amendment, which would probably be at the limit of the substantive due process of the 14th amendment.
The right to travel has already been found one of the privileges and immunities of citizens. In fact, it’s just about the only thing that has.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone insist that Plessy v. Ferguson was still in force.
I think it was explicitly overturned by Brown.
You might as well argue that Bowers v. Hardwick is still in effect.
The limiting mechanism would be that the citizens’ rights end where the governments’ enumerated powers begin. SCOTUS has in the past upheld a right to enter into voluntary contracts. But Congress under its commerce power can regulate such contracts.
Privacy has also been established as a right, but I think the courts are still confused on that one. For example, why is it an absolute right in regards to abortion, but not say, your finances?
Separate but equal is still legal in regards to gender. It was overturned for race because there was no equality.
It’s not an absolute right in either case.
According to my source, Brown did not overturn it, another case did.
Yep. This is the difference between high school and college courses touching on constitutional law and law school con law. It’s virtually an article of faith at lower levels that Brown overturned Plessy - though this error is common at higher levels, too. In fact, the Westlaw KeyCite for Plessy even says it was overturned by Brown.
Plessy stood for the proposition that segregation of passenger railcars was permissible as long as equal facilities were provided in black railcars. Plessy’s holding was effectively expanded to education by Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education (175 U.S. 528 (1899)). In that case, the county operated schools only for whites (there were no black schools at all), and the petitioners asked for an injunction allowing black children to attend the schools too. The Court said no, deferring to the state court, but noted that the outcome might have been different if they demanded that separate schools be opened for blacks.
The Brown holding was merely that segregation was impermissible in the context of public education. So Brown explicitly overruled Cumming, not Plessy.
Plessy was effectively overruled by passage of the Civil Rights Act and Heart of Atlanta Motel.
My source says this case overruled Plessy, Gayle v. Browder, 352 U.S. 903
What is this mysterious source you keep referring to? Gayle was the first time SCOTUS applied Brown to public transit but it was also a per curiam decision in which the opinion consisted of three bare citations, so it’s hard to call it controlling law.
Gayle is at 91, the Cumming case you cite, and are correct, is at 89.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CONAN-1992/html/GPO-CONAN-1992-13.htm
Oh, I remember you linking to that before. Handy. I should have bookmarked it.