Posted on 06/26/2003 10:21:58 AM PDT by Polycarp
More reaction from the good guys first (CWA + WCU), and then the Human Rights Campaign, the chief homo'l pressure group.
Rebecca L. Riggs
Press Secretary
Concerned Women for America
(202) 488 -7000 x.126
Cell: (202) 255-2278
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 25, 2003
http://media.cwfa.org
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
REBECCA L. RIGGS (202) 488-7000, ext. 126
KELLY WALMSLEY (703) 683-5004, ext. 140
CWA SAYS:
SUPREME COURT WRONG TO DECLARE A RIGHT TO SEXUAL PERVERSION
Washington, D.C. –In an extreme activist ruling today the Supreme Court overturned a Texas sodomy law and its own precedent, declaring a supposed constitutional right to sodomy.
“The ruling in Lawrence v. Texas comes from Supreme Court justices who believe in a ‘living’ and ‘evolving’ theory of the Constitution—it’s as if the Founders wrote it on a blackboard and gave them an eraser and chalk,” said Jan LaRue, chief counsel for Concerned Women for America (CWA) author of CWA’s amicus brief in support of Texas. “If there’s no rational basis for prohibiting same-sex sodomy by consenting adults, then state laws prohibiting prostitution, adultery, bigamy, and incest are at risk.”
“No doubt, homosexual activists will try to bootstrap this decision into a mandate for same-sex marriage. Any attempt to equate sexual perversion with the institution that is the very foundation of society is as baseless as this ruling. By striking down Bowers v. Hardwick, we see how little value justices give Court precedents when they want to impose an agenda on the American people.” said Sandy Rios, president of CWA.
“Six lawyers robed in black have magically discovered a right of privacy that includes sexual perversion. More vaporous law emanating from ‘penumbras’ that do not exist in the text of the Constitution,” LaRue added.
“The Court has denied the people of Texas their constitutional right to decide what is immoral sexual behavior and replaced it with the Court’s version. The majority didn’t like the Texas sodomy statutes, so they struck them down,” LaRue concluded.
The case began when Lawrence and his male partner were arrested and pled “no contest” to charges of committing “deviate sexual intercourse,” defined under the Texas statutes as “deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex,” which is “any contact between any part of the genitals of one person and the mouth or anus of another person; or the penetration of the genitals or the anus of another person with an object.” They appealed to the Texas Court of Appeals, which upheld the convictions, and then to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“This ruling means that schoolchildren will be taught that homosexual sodomy is normal, healthy and the equivalent of marital sex,” said Robert Knight, director of CWA’s Culture & Family Institute. “And it will intensify efforts to attack the next barrier to total sexual ‘liberation,’ the laws regarding the age of consent.
“By creating a constitutional ‘right’ to sodomy, the court has made a mockery of real constitutional rights and has trampled on the rights of the people of Texas to govern their own communities. This is judicial tyranny at its worst,” Knight said.
“This decision is further evidence that ‘We the People’ have virtually lost the right to govern ourselves because of judicial activists who think they have a right to create law. More than ever, the American people need to put a stop to the obstructionist Senate filibusters that are blocking President Bush’s nominees to the federal courts,” Rios concluded.
Concerned Women for America is the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization.
--30-- Wisconsin Christians United:
June 26, 2003 WCU Director's Response to the U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Lawrence v. Texas
"Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." Ecclesiastes 8:11
"The decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the law which criminalizes sodomy in Texas is a lawless decision which flies in the face of the foundational law upon which this nation was founded, the laws of nature and of nature's God. In ruling that state governments cannot criminalize such sexually perverse acts which are proscribed by God's dictated and revealed law, the justices have violated the precepts of our nation's charter, the Declaration of Independence, by which the U.S. Constitution along with all federal and state laws are to be defined. They have also arrogantly spat in God's face by declaring lawful that which He has declared to be unlawful. And so America slips deeper into anarchy and becomes even more deserving of the judgment Almighty God is even now beginning to visit on this nation.
"This ruling does not change the mission of Wisconsin Christians United. We will continue to meet the deceptions and aggressions of the homosexual movement with truth, including the gospel of Jesus Christ. In addition to our many other activities, this year alone we expect to distribute over a quarter of a million of our brochures door-to-door and person-to-person in Wisconsin and, to a lesser extent, across the nation. Now is the time for Christians to increase, not decrease, their efforts on behalf of God's kingdom and His righteousness. With His help, we intend to do just that." -Pastor Ralph Ovadal
"Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice does not sleep forever." -Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence
To contact Pastor Ralph Ovadal, call WCU at 608-328-4841.
Related Articles at www.wcuweb.com: Now the Majority May Do What the Majority Did Why Is the Church Silent . . . Again?
Human Rights Campaign: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, June 26, 2003
HRC LAUDS LANDMARK SUPREME COURT RULING STRIKING DOWN STATE SODOMY LAWS, RECOGNIZING RIGHT TO PRIVACY FOR GLBT AMERICANS Justice Kennedy: "Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today."
WASHINGTON — The Human Rights Campaign lauded the Supreme Court's landmark ruling today that struck down discriminatory state sodomy laws in 13 states on the basis that they violate Americans' Constitutional right to privacy. The 6-3 decision in Lawrence v. Texas makes clear that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have a fundamental right to privacy, says HRC.
"This is an historic day for fair-minded Americans everywhere," said HRC Executive Director Elizabeth Birch. "We are elated and gratified that the Supreme Court, in its wisdom, has seen discriminatory state sodomy laws for what they are — divisive, mean-spirited laws that were designed to single out and marginalize an entire group of Americans for unequal treatment."
The ruling — overturning state sodomy laws and the Court's infamous 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick decision — removes the stigma and criminal brand that the laws have long placed on GLBT Americans. Sodomy laws have long been used as a basis for discrimination against GLBT Americans in employment opportunities, in custody and visitation rights and in myriad other aspects of ordinary life.
"Gay Americans are parents, children, brothers, sisters, friends, co-workers and church-goers. They make important contributions in every community in the country," added Birch. "This ruling opens the door for new advances toward full equality and should be viewed as a challenge to legislators to help pass important legal protections for GLBT Americans — like employment non-discrimination laws and comprehensive hate crimes legislation.
" Lambda Legal deserves an enormous amount of credit for bringing this critical case to the highest level," said Birch. "The GLBT community also owes a debt of gratitude to John Lawrence and Tyron Garner for letting their story be heard."
In 1998, Lawrence and Garner pleaded no contest to breaking the Texas sodomy law, after police broke into Lawrence's home in search of an armed intruder and discovered the two men engaged in intercourse. Both men were arrested and imprisoned overnight. They were fined $200 each and forced to pay court costs. The convictions barred them from holding several types of jobs in Texas and would have required them to register as sex offenders should they have moved to any of several other states. Lambda Legal asked the Supreme Court to hear the case and declare a violation of privacy and equal protection.
HRC signed onto a "friend of the court" brief written by the law firm of O'Melveny & Myers LLP that summarizes the direct and resulting harms caused by sodomy laws. The brief describes sodomy laws as outdated. It provides strong evidence that gays and lesbians are law-abiding, productive citizens who are healthy partners, good parents, patriotic veterans and sometimes heroic citizens. A variety of other civil rights organizations, religious groups, public health experts, historians and others have also either signed or filed briefs of their own in favor of repealing sodomy laws.
In 1986, the Supreme Court upheld sodomy laws 5-4 in Bowers v. Hardwick. Since the ruling, much has changed. Only three justices from that ruling remain on the bench. And the Georgia sodomy law, which was at issue in Hardwick, was struck down by the Georgia Supreme Court in 1998. The late Justice Lewis Powell Jr., who joined the majority in Hardwick, expressed regret for voting to uphold the discriminatory Georgia law. "I think I probably made a mistake in that one," Powell told law students in 1990.
"Justice Powell is looking down on us today and smiling," said Birch. "We believe that some day, Justices Scalia, Thomas and Rehnquist, who joined in the dissent, will recognize their error."
Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, , John Paul Stevens and David Souter cast the majority votes. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote separately to say that she agreed that the Texas law should be invalidated but did not join in overturning Bowers. While the case was not decided on Equal Protection principles — the majority found that all Americans have a right to private consensual sexual conduct — the decision also states "Equality of treatment and the due process right to demand respect for conduct protected by the substantive guarantee of liberty are linked in important respects, and a decision on the latter point advances both interests."
The ruling strikes down sodomy laws in Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia.
The Human Rights Campaign is the largest national lesbian and gay political organization with members throughout the country. It effectively lobbies Congress, provides campaign support and educates the public to ensure that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans can be open, honest and safe at home, at work and in the community. .
- 30 -
They're not "at risk"-they're blatantly unconstitutional.
Mr. Justice Kennedy, for the Court:
"These references show an emerging awareness that liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex">
This ruling has no practicle effect on anyone's behavior.
The vast, vast amounts of people who engage in oral and anal sex don't give a damn what the law says about it.
They're going to do it anyway, and there's nothing the state can do about it.
And no one is going to have oral or anal sex that wouldn't have done so while it was illegal.
The only thing sodomy laws do is foster massive contempt for the law. You see, if you make someone a felon for having oral sex, they're going to think the law is a big joke, and they're going to get used to breaking the law. Later, when they contemplate breaking a real law, it won't be such a big deal.
It's always interesting to see conservatives promote the intrusions that accompany socialism.
But not believers.
I join Justice Scalia's dissenting opinion. I write separately to note that the law before the Court today "is ... uncommonly silly." Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479, 527 (1965) (Stewart, J., dissenting). If I were a member of the Texas Legislature, I would vote to repeal it. Punishing someone for expressing his sexual preference through noncommercial consensual conduct with another adult does not appear to be a worthy way to expend valuable law enforcement resources.
Notwithstanding this, I recognize that as a member of this Court I am not empowered to help petitioners and others similarly situated. My duty, rather, is to "decide cases 'agreeably to the Constitution and laws of the United States.' " Id., at 530. And, just like Justice Stewart, I "can find [neither in the Bill of Rights nor any other part of the Constitution a] general right of privacy," ibid., or as the Court terms it today, the "liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions," ante, at 1.
[bold-type added]
AntiGuv's addendum: Get over it - it's a done deal..
I believe that this is the real issue in this case. The solution is to appoint more Justices like Thomas.
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