U.S. Supreme Court rewrites Constitution and 3,000 years of history

Alliance Defense Fund | 6/26/03 | Richard K. Jefferson

[Polycarp]

U.S. Supreme Court rewrites

Constitution and 3,000 years of history

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court today rewrote the U.S. Constitution and 3,000 years of legal history by striking down the Texas sodomy law in a 6-3 decision.

The court overrode the Constitution, the history of American law, and its own precedent by declaring in Lawrence v. Texas that there is a right to privacy to protect private, adult consensual sexual activity. Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority, and only Justices Scalia and Thomas and Chief Justice Rhenquist dissented. The majority reasoned, unbelievably, that because of the trend in state legislatures to repeal sodomy laws, these laws have become unconstitutional.

The Alliance Defense Fund, a national legal organization based in Scottsdale, Arizona, said the framers of the Constitution could never have imagined an interpretation finding in the Constitution a right to engage in the act of sodomy.

“We are disappointed but we’re not giving up hope and we’re not going away,” said Jordan Lorence, a senior litigator with the Alliance Defense Fund. “This ruling provides us with new opportunities. We have already prevailed in other key cases, and we must persevere.” The Alliance Defense Fund supported the prevailing parties in Hurley v. Irish-American Group of Boston and Boy Scouts of America v. Dale.

In its 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick decision, the court upheld laws against sodomy. Then Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote in his concurring opinion “… in constitutional terms there is no such thing as a fundamental right to commit homosexual sodomy.” Burger continued: “Decisions of individuals relating to homosexual conduct have been subject to state intervention throughout the history of Western civilization. Condemnation of those practices is firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards…[Sir William] Blackstone described ‘the infamous crime against nature’ as an offense of ‘deeper malignity’ than rape, a heinous act ‘the very mention of which is a disgrace to human nature’ and ‘a crime not fit to be named.’ To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.”

“It would have been a better day if the court had taken Burger’s words to heart, and followed its own holding in Bowers, and 3,000 years of history and precedent,” Lorence said.

The Alliance Defense Fund serves people of faith; it provides strategy, training, and funding in the legal battle for religious liberty, sanctity of life, and traditional family values.

Richard K. Jefferson Senior Director National Media Relations Alliance Defense Fund rjefferson@alliancedefensefund.org (480) 444-0020 15333 North Pima Road, Suite 165 Scottsdale, AZ 85260

[ought-six]

What happens between two consenting adults, in the privacy of their own home, that doesn't harm anyone, is no one's business but their own.

[Sabertooth]

This is dismal, but strangely fitting, as the majority has gleaned a right to homosexual sodomy from reasoning they pulled out of their asses.

Like abortion, homosexual sodomy is not legitimately within the purview of the federal government, and legislation regarding both should be properly left to the states. I support the prerogative of the states to outlaw or legalize either, and it's a foul practice for the federal government to relentlessly usurp the states' prerogatives via the tripartite clutching for power we see in the federal branches.

There is a thermodynamic aspect to political power: like energy, political power is conserved and finite. The federal government only becomes more powerful by seizing that power, either from the states, or from the people. We appear to have reached a point where federal power is now a political black hole, with each new absorption of power increasing its mass, with the consequently greater gravitational pull fueling the next seizure of power.

Since much of the plain meaning of the Constitution is now meaningless to the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the federal government, what is to stop their ravenous lust for power from gorging indefinitely on the states and the people?

[dansangel]

In its 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick decision, the court upheld laws against sodomy. Then Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote in his concurring opinion “… in constitutional terms there is no such thing as a fundamental right to commit homosexual sodomy.”

Have we fallen down so low between then and now....a mere 17 years? Definitely a blow to all of humanity.

[nickcarraway]

It's scary to think this is the most ``conservative'' the Court may ever be again...

[Darksheare]

New York's legislature just changed the wording of it to include criminal (read forced non consensual) oral and anal sex.
It doesn't mention criminal vaginal sex at all, so they've created a possible defense there.

It shouldn't be legal for my wife to go out an dcommit adultery, though.
She should face some form of reprimand for such behavior.

And since she's a 7th day Adventist (Read as legalist that insists that the Levitical laws are all in effect..) then she and her boyfriend should be stoned at the city gates as per Levitical Law.

Such rulings and laws are, however, insane.
There is no easy out, and it would be better if common sense applied.
Common sense says that one should not try to force something into a one way opening (anal sex) and as far as oral sex goes, that shouldn't be forced.

That's the bottom line.
Have a good one, and don't stay out in the sun too long.
Seems here in New York we've already had some people show up with 'sun poisoning'.

[blackdog]

And I suppose that using the same logic, that since states are repealing marijuana posession/use laws that the federal interest in such cases is no longer in effect either?

Maybe someone should make sure the DEA gets a copy of the wisdom broght forth by the majority ruling.

Once again, proof that saying nothing preserves your wisdom. Opening your mouth (or in this case opening your judicial mouth) proves that the cloak of elitist wisdom that our supreme court is shrouded in has presented them as an incredibly stupid bunch of social architects willing to rule on issues which have nothing to do with their charter.

I can recognize a cultural nervous breakdown when I see one. If the FDA does not start a thorazine feed into the public's water system there is going to be complete insanity during the next decade.

Liberals have lost congress, and executive branches out of a three branched government. Can someone please explain to them that the judicial branch is not an elective one?

[colorado tanker]

I completely agree, Sabertooth. The issue before the Court was not whether homosexual sodomy should be outlawed, but whether under the Constitution the Texas legislature had the power to do that. Of course they do.

The reason that judicial appointments are now a Senate bloodsport is that the SCOTUS is no longer an impartial arbiter of what the law says, but is now a political, policymaking body.

[ninenot]

Beg to differ. The Supremes are wrong, as the States may legislate in their best interests.

The only real argument against the Tex law was that it did not prevent HETERO sodomy.

Further, until the dopesmokers in the Warren court discovered it, there was no "right to privacy" in the Constitution, and there STILL is not.

But hey, EEO is more important than fundamental disorder-licensing, hey?

[ninenot]

you can't have sex with children

Why not?

Please advise where the Supremes have left this intact with their decision...

[Sabertooth]

Rush just asked: "Do we even need states anymore? I mean, if they can't act individually, what's the purpose?

[ninenot]

Kennedy was also the idiot who penned the "We are the Supremes, We Are Right, DAMMIT!!!!" ruling re-affirming Roe about 4-5 years ago.

Delusional and lifetime-appointed.

[ninenot]

Kennedy was also the idiot who penned the "We are the Supremes, We Are Right, DAMMIT!!!!" ruling re-affirming Roe about 4-5 years ago.

Delusional and lifetime-appointed.

[ninenot]

Matter of fact, Scalia references the Kennedy fantasy (it was 1992: Casey) in his opinion quoted at length in the link given on this thread.

[ninenot]

No surprise that you are a Goldwater Pubbie--they sort of like gravely-disordered individuals, ain'a?

Actually, leaving the law intact and choosing not to enforce it was an option.

[ninenot]

No surprise that you are a Goldwater Pubbie--they sort of like gravely-disordered individuals, ain'a?

Actually, leaving the law intact and choosing not to enforce it was an option.

[ninenot]

No surprise that you are a Goldwater Pubbie--they sort of like gravely-disordered individuals, ain'a?

Actually, leaving the law intact and choosing not to enforce it was an option.

[CobaltBlue]

The statute that was struck down had nothing to do with sex with children.

If you want to argue that this is one more step down the slippery slope, fine, but we aren't there yet.

[ninenot]

Ahh--SODOMY is not "oral sex."

And I don't know you well enough to describe it accurately to you. Look in a good dictionary.

[ninenot]

what is to stop their ravenous lust for power from gorging indefinitely on the states and the people?

Guns and Ammo, and lots of them.