Laws against sodomy do nothing to protect marriage. As many married people commit sodomy as single people, so the cause and effect is specious.
Laws regarding incest exist to protect the overall gene pool, since children resulting from incestuous conception often magnify genetic defects that would be diluted from conception outside the bloodline. These laws have no effect on marriage, nor were they ever designed to.
The only laws dealing directly with heterosexual marriage are those regarding adultery, which, by definition, only exists outside marriage and can thus be considered a direct threat to the institution. Yet few states have laws against adultery any more, and the few that do enforce them so irregularly (if at all) as to render them moot.
God's laws, not the state's, should govern morality.
Laws against murder violate my individual liberties when I commute on the expressway every day.
Laws against Bank Robbery violate my individual liberty when I want money for free.
However, if I relabel "Sodomy" as "Sex", "Murder", as "Self-Expression", and "Bank Robbery" as "Do-it-yourself Withdrawal",I suppose I could make a case of the Law making me a victim.
Hell, anti-anything laws violate individual liberties.
By definition fercryingout loud!
Anti-murder laws violate individual liberties.
Anti-pedophilia laws violate individual liberties.
Anti-robbery laws violate individual liberties.
Anti-mugging laws violate individual liberties.
Anti-embezzlement laws violate individual liberties.
Anti-smoking laws violate individual liberties.
Anti-Second-Amendment laws violate individual liberties.
Etc.
Etc.
Cool.
The perverts perhaps are getting a glimpse (finally!) of the point that Santorum was trying to make?
Gotta go, I hear Nelli getting ready out in the barn.
Actually, this could not happen to anyone, you nitwit.
I believe that this will be thrown out, on the simple grounds of "equal protection." If a specific act is legal between a man and a woman, then (due to the equal protection clause) it should be legal between two women or two men.
I'm not saying that it's right, just that it should be thrown out. Personally, I believe that given the circumstances, all laws governing personal conduct between consenting adults should be reconsidered. The #1 thing should be adultery, and there should be serious civil penalties for it, since adultery is anything but a "victimless" act. A marriage is, among other things, a contractual obligation, and like all contracts, it can be dissolved by the consent of the parties. However, if there's adultery and it causes the dissolution of the marriage, there should be a penalty. There should be a serious look at the concept of "no fault" divorce. I've believed for a long time that "no fault" divorce is far more detrimental to the institution of marriage than anything else, including homosexual marriage.
Mark
Sodomy is NOT sex.
Basically, the sodomy laws were written and passed with an apparent understanding that they would not strictly enforced. There are almost certainly gay bars in Texas and hotels where people who meet in such bars go. If the Republic of Texas really wanted to enforce the sodomy statutes, it's clear it could do a much better job.
That isn't to say the statutes are intended never to be enforced. If two men were to start humping each other on a park bench in broad daylight, few people would have any problem charging them with the sodomy statute.
The issue is, in a sense, one of degree. If a cop is letting people by who are driving 60mph in a 55 zone, that would not interfere with his authority to ticket someone who was doing 70, but would all into question a ticket issued to someone doing 56.
The problem in the extant case is that there's no real sign that the people did anything significantly worse than thousands of other people whom the police could have arrested and caught if they had any interest in doing so. The arrest of these two individuals was due to entirely arbitrary circumstances.
I oppose the enforcement of the law in the extant case not because I support sodomy, but rather because an essential aspect of tyranny is the passage of laws which will be sparsely enforced and widely disobeyed, but which can be enforced at will against anyone the state doesn't like.
I don't think so.
What about my liberty to control all aspects of your life?
Don't you understand that I have a God given right to control what you do in the privacy of your bedroom?
Where have you been? I clearly have the power to control what foods you eat, what you smoke and what drugs you may take. I have the right to force you to wear seat belts in your car and helmets on you motorcycle. I have the right to decide that you can not and must not own firearms. I have the right take away as much of your money as I need to build ballparks or whatever. I have the right to not allow women to control their reproductive functions from conception to delivery.
How dare you try to take away my inalianable right to control you. You must be a right-wing-communist-religous-fundamentalist-conservative ACLU member.
We have today so divorced ourselves from our own history that we have become unaware of just how critical these underpinings are. As we continue to chip away at and discard those underpinings our society totters and tilts. The ideas and social mores that is our foundation will not be easily repaired once they've been destroyed.
The prohibition on homosexuality is one of those underpinings.