Don't frighten the horses: What Larry Craig tells conservatives about ourselves.

vanity | September 1, 2007 | Nathanbedford

[shrinkermd]

Brilliant and well written post! Thank you. Russell Kirk once wrote that "conservative" was best used as an adjective than as a noun. Thinking of "conservative" this way solves many problems.

[JSDude1]

Frankly; (and I say this with respect); you are a compromiser my friend.

I (as a principled conservative)/Christian/Traditionalist/Victorian Era Male (not born then, but..!) still stand against homosexuality as abhorant. I do believe it should be criminilized and don’t care what the elites or the “law”-as if the Supreme Court ever really legally has the standing of Legislative “law” says. This must be opposed on all levels (not that we have any ill will toward homosexuals themselves, but we should not stop opposing it legally). To do so would be to go down the ‘slippery-slope’, and I do not conceede that homosexual perverts will eventually win this war against our society~! To compromise at all, especially where the law concerns, we abandon all premise of a “higher-law” that our laws in the US have traditionally been based upon (and also which we oppose abortion- as you so elequently make this point..). To abandon a higher law, gives the un-repentent homosexual the imputus to impose their will completely upon society. Forget Parental rights-which because of the truely aborhant nature of homosexuality conflicts with the real homosexual agenda.

I don’t have any ill will toward homosexuals personally (but I do for their sexual sin, and they are sinners in need of Jesus just as others that are trapped in sin are). To abandon our opposition of homosexuality (while we should not as Christians oppose them) would be to give up on them; to say ‘it’s ok’..’it’s all-right’ you’re gay, and really gives up hope for them.

I do insist that homosexuality is of the devil, and one of the most distructive infectious diseases of the soul/mind that our society has ever seen (but I believe through Christ-even the most ardent can be forgiven, repent, and change; there is HOPE).

I equate it to alcoholism: we don’t tell the alcoholic their adiction is ok becuase there are REAL harmful (as well as spiritually harmful-sinful) effects from this..should we do the same to the sexual addict?

As for the Craig case: He pleads innocent (and that the cop was mistaken/mishonest- I agree we republicans throw our own under the bus too quickly, I am not prepared to ‘throw him under the bus’ or to say he’s guilty untill the real facts come out that show it’s true. He shouldn’t resign unless actually shown to have really committed this act, otherwise Republicans are only doing this to presumptively ‘save their own hide’. I don’t think the public is going to buy it; and I could care less about party leadership-(they’re pretty much worthless, see as what they’ve done over this last year..).

Instead of worrying about what the democrats call us “hypocrites” there has got to be a better-more Biblical way to stand against this, I shall be praying for God’s guidence to find it..!

[IronJack]

The right to privacy does exist as a matter of common law, and as a legal principle. For example, the Fourth Amendment guarantees the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, ..." The Third Amendment exists because of a right to private enjoyment of one's property. The Fifth Amendment respects the privacy of individuals accused of a crime. And so on.

That the Court has erroneously expanded the common law principle to protect abortion does not diminish that principle, nor its applicability in this case. There is little if any compelling interest on the part of the state to regulate sexual behavior between consenting adults in the privacy of their own quarters. There is a HUGE implication to ruling otherwise, namely that no citizen can act, even if no harm arises and he is within the precincts of his own home, in a manner the state disapproves.

I don't need or want the state approving or disapproving of my private sexual behavior. It is none of the state's business. The Court wisely found this to be true.

[Rudder]

Re; Your post 80 and my post 74: you’re not reading or writing carefully.

[nathanbedford]

I think we are in agreement. I posted this in the vanity:

The flagrant, obnoxious, in your face primping and even soliciting, should be outlawed because it is repugnant to a higher value, which is the welfare of our children. Likewise proselytizing of our children in the school system. Homosexual marriage can be opposed because it degrades a higher institution, heterosexual marriage. Civil unions, on the other hand, should be easy for a conservative to tolerate because he believes in the freedom of contract.

And this:

Conversely, we must not be intimidated by political correctness from insisting that the law protect our children from physical, psychological and educational abuse. We must be careful to punish acts where appropriate, but not the status. Neither should we tolerate that the status be exalted. We should act only when the horses are frightened.

[nathanbedford]

Thank you.

[JSDude1]

South Carolina would not aprove of a gay Senator (despite someone’s supicion), I am not willing to conceede that someone struggles with particular sin unless otherwise proven definitively true..

[nathanbedford]

Rudder, no, I did indeed mean to refer you to Bill the drill's post number 73. As you will read there and in my original vanity you will see a great deal of ambivalence about the wisdom of making solicitation illegal rather than concentrating on prosecuting public sodomy itself.

Apart from free speech issues, it leads us down the path that is at best treacherous. You might consider the problems that occur in the workplace where we do "punish" solicitation of heterosexual sex.

[wardaddy]

Let us clear out all this underbrush so that we should ourselves not be accused of hypocrisy. Let us resist homosexual expansionism in defense of higher values but let us not confuse homosexuals with the devil. Let us come clear in our thinking about how we want the law to work and how we want our politicians to behave. Let us reject utterly those who demagogue this issue.

i would not quibble with that but a twink trolling Senator in a public bathroom ain't worth the ordnance to defend Bedford

[nathanbedford]

I find your history of the privacy issue to be substantially accurate. My problem with your position that the right of privacy can be applied to protect sodomy arises out of my fear that yours is a purely subjective application of the principle. Why should there be a greater right to have privacy in one's home than in one's body? And if you cannot tell me why, then I think you have to reverse your position on abortion.

[Logophile]

I think that we are in agreement.

I see that we are.

Shall we charge them both ways?

[GitmoSailor]

Now 5 days of Craig stories is “So” over!!!!.....Lets get back to the Hillary fund Scandal!!!!!!!...........

[nathanbedford]

It ain't the fudgePacker I am worried about, it's us.

[tpaine]

You ask:

--- should the law acknowledge that the sight of coupled homosexuals is far more disconcerting than the image of coupled heterosexuals?

No, our legal system should not make that type of distinction. -- It would violate 'equal protection', imo.

If the law admits that much, is it not saying that homosexuality is somehow depraved? How can that be squared with the Supreme Court's ruling that the homosexual sex act itself, if private and done between consenting adults, is constitutionally protected?

You've answered your own question. It's not our legal systems function to say that homosexuality "is somehow depraved".

We criminilize the solicitation of one kind of sex which is legal if private, and do not criminalize solicitation of another kind which is also legal if private (and not commercialized). Why? We criminalize both kinds if conducted in public. Why is one solicitation more obnoxious than the other?

'Legally speaking' they aren't; -- and can't be, - under equal protection..

This is an example of the trouble the law gets into what it attempts to criminalize a tool or means of a crime instead of, or, at least as well as, the criminal behavior itself. So we attempt to make guns illegal to prevent gun violence instead of concentrating on prosecuting the violence itself.

Well put. -- By saying that States have a 'right' to criminalize private non-harmful sexual behaviors, -- we in effect are saying that States have a 'right' to criminalize private non harmful behaviors regarding the carrying of arms, for instance.

[RedWhitetAndBlue]

Um, what?

[1COUNTER-MORTER-68]

Seems to me these local laws are to “Keep The Peace” in
cases such as this,,,

Keep the Chamber Of Commerce happy,,,
(looks bad on the news)

Keep’s the fags from getting shot/stabbed/ass-kicked or
stuffed down the city sewer,,,

MAN LAW : NO TOUCHIN’ IN THE BATHROOM !!!...;0)

[Jim Noble]

Without getting more graphic than this thread deserves they're quite a bit worse if those acts take place in public.

Bill, you don't need to worry about my sensibilities. I'm board-certified in Infectious Diseases and have dabbled (and on occasion more than dabbled) in Public Health for thirty years.

Your opinion is common, but not, I think, correct.

Sex with strangers, sodomy, multiple partners, exposure to excrement, serial viral and bacterial infections are every bit as bad in the privacy of one's bedroom as they are in the toilets at MSP. The risk to third parties from letting it all hang out is vastly overstated, especially now that the Mexicans and Haitians who clean up after these guys use bleach and wear gloves.

The "public health" case for re-instituting antihomosexual laws and codes is strong enough, but it's equally strong at home as it is in the airport - and it isn't going to happen in either place.

[nathanbedford]

If I may inflict this on you here is a rather long post which has some relevance to this idea of prohibiting one behavior to get at another:

I found your tutorial on American civics to be edifying, however, I do not argue that to prohibit the use of drugs is unconstitutional, merely that the prohibition is unwise. I concede that laws restricting the use or of drugs are, absent other constitutional flaws, not per se unconstitutional. The American experiment prohibiting alcohol, however, was constitutional-we know that because we had an amendment to that effect -but it certainly was not wise. I think we are skating dangerously close to disrupting our republican constitutional government which you have described when we are dictated to by a Supreme Court which can rule on the one hand that a state may constitutionally pass all sorts of laws restricting our access to guns, but can rule on the other hand that a state may not pass laws prohibiting buggery. If living in our constitutional republic means that we are all entitled to carry on merrily buggering one another in the privacy of our homes (a pastime which I am told encourages the spread of AIDS and thus generates many antisocial results), why cannot we merrily consume illicit drugs in our homes? Here we probably both agree that this is a decision which is best made in our legislatures, and not in our courts.

But we have not so far argued constitutionality here, we have talked about the problem from a public policy point of view. In this public-policy context, you seem to state the graveman of your arguments here:

"Disruptive behaviors which are damaging to the ongoing function of society (such as drug use) were singled out long ago, based on hard learned lessons and that's why many laws were made for the good of society as a whole to restrict such indulgences which erode the freedom of society in general. Individual freedom to take drugs, turn into a thief and murderer due to the effects of thse drugs on the human mind do not over ride the freedom of society to walk without fear on the street."

Here I suggest you are conflating "disruptive behaviors", ie the frequently observed results of drug taking (or alcohol consumption for that matter) such as street muggings, with the drug taking itself which is, of course, not "disruptive" since the addict usually mellows out and sleeps - although psychotic episodes do occur. As a society we have learned to legally disassociate the drinking from drunken behavior and generally criminalize only the latter. When the potential for harm becomes too great, as in drunken driving, we cease to distinguish between the drinking and the crime. In fact we criminalize the drinking even where the defendant has capably driven, saying that we conclusively presume the inebriate to be driving drunk when his blood-alcohol exceeds a certain level even though he may actually have been otherwise driving legally.You would extend this principle across the board when it comes to drugs usage, presumably because you believe the instrumentality itself is so dangerous because drugs will convert a user into a "thief and murderer due tho the effects of these drugs on the human mind..." and criminalize the use without taking account whether it has acturally produced "disruptive behaviors."

Such is an inversion of our liberties and should not be resorted to by the state absent compelling proof of the potential evil with a probability so high that the state must eradicate this behavior. Futhermore, there should be near certainity that the loss of liberties will produce the conduct desired. Finally, the cure must not be worse than the disease, that is, the state must not engage in wholesale deprivation of human rights and become itself corrupt in the process. Remember, we went down this route in prohibition and the experiment failed all of these tests. This is exactly the road that the gun grabbers want us to go down today, they claim that the instrumentality is so dangerous and the carnage in our homes and streets is so insupportable that we must outlaw the guns themselves rather than punish their improper use. That is what you have just claimed about drugs. I acknowledge that drugs do not enjoy explicit constitutional protection as do guns, I even acknowledge that the state may act constitutionally in banning drugs, but is it wise to do so?

Those of us on my side of this argument believe that a drug user is converted into a "thief and murderer" not due to the effects of these drugs on the human mind-although I concede that they tend to erace conscience-but rather due to the craving which cannot be satisfied at reasonable expense. The state in its efforts to eradicate the drugs has only made them more expensive thus tempting the addict to engage in thievery and even murder to obtain his next dose. I say, let them have the drugs at minimal cost so that the addict can satisfy his habit without resort to crime. He might kill himself, but he leaves me and my family alone and we will be able, in your words, "to walk without fear on the street."

[jedward]

Nice synopsis (lol)

[IronJack]

Why should there be a greater right to have privacy in one's home than in one's body? And if you cannot tell me why, then I think you have to reverse your position on abortion.

There are several subtleties you're missing in oversimplifying the argument that way. For one, "sodomy" doesn't harm anyone. One key component in rejecting the state's oversight of sexual behavior is that no one be injured by the activity. And that doesn't mean "injured" in some vague, idealistic way. It means in a demonstrable, empirical fashion. Abortion is not harmless; a person DIES whenever one is performed.

Secondly, the right to privacy has NEVER been absolute. No one has ever defended the right to murder or rape on private property based on a privacy precedent. Where the state can demonstrate a compelling interest in regulating behavior, it can justify its intrusion into the private precincts of its citizens. Butting into a person's bedroom is the ultimate intrusion, yet the state has little or no justifiable interest in doing so other than the imposition of an arbitrary morality on the subjects.