The Supreme Court: Unlocked Doors and Whitey

IntellectualConservative.com ^ | Friday, December 6th | Brian S. Wise

[Abcdefg]

You should know what the big problem is with this issue. If it was truly about what consensual adults do in their bedrooms, no one would know anything about what went on in there.
On a personal note, I am able to control my urges.
This case is about lowering public standards of decency.

[meyer]

I'm not seeing the connection between two gay men and legalized prostitution.

And even if you could, well, Nevada hasn't exactly fallen off the face of the earth yet.

[Illbay]

Sorry, he's wrong about state and local authority being just as hamstrung as the Federal is. This is a newfangled notion that has never been heard before this generation, likely a reaction to too much government at all levels.

Laws against sodomy and other acts public and private have been on the books since before there WAS an American Republic. No one can sincerely claim that the COnstitution, when it was written, struck all those laws down but we're just now getting around to realizing it.

That's just poppy-cock.

The state and local authorities, being nearer to the people, have powers the Federal could not and should not ever dream of.

Morality, public and private, has always been a matter of legislation at that level, and you can't just wave that away because of some hyper-libertarian fad.

[Karsus]

1: Texas already has laws that make sex in public illegal. This will not do ANYTHING to those laws.

2: You are overlooking the fact that the where in their private bedroom.

3: What interest does the state have in controling what consenting adults do in their bedrooms?

4: If I understand you correctly you are saying that a private bedroom is the same as a public place?

[Tina Johnson]

Right. But whether or not two men buggar each other isn't the State's business. That was the point.

[jlogajan]

No one can sincerely claim that the COnstitution, when it was written, struck all those laws down but we're just now getting around to realizing it.

You're talking about slavery or segregation, right?

[bvw]

How broad will the "private" space become? We know aleady -- every dark alley, every restroom stall, every cospe of trees. If it provides the barest g-string of privacy it will be called a private space!

And should, by presumption of innocence -- why in heat of sexual drives, who looks 360 degrees and up and down -- they see only each others prong or pit, so certainly acted in mens rea of privacy.

Allow sodomy and every dish towel on the beach creates a private space full of it.

[FreedomCalls]

But it's not the issue at hand here.

I'm sorry, I must have missed something. What is the issue at hand here then if it is not about sex between two consenting adults conducted in the privacy of one's own bedroom?

[Tina Johnson]

Nonsense.

[Tina Johnson]

Because the column was about gays, not prostitution. That's why it wasn't the issue at hand.

[meyer]

This is a state's rights issue. There's nothing in the U.S. constitution that delineates a right to sodomy, hence it's up to the states.

Frankly, I don't see the fascination with this "sodomy". To each their own, I guess.

Anyway, while the constitution doesn't delineate a right to sodomy, it does profess a right to life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness. It also at least alludes to a right of privacy as in "a person and their effects" are free from illegal search and seizure. I think there is enough leeway to allow the supreme Court to tell the individual state that it isn't to regulate private behavior. JMHO

[Karsus]

Dude, you need to lay off the drugs. Seriously.

[Abcdefg]

1. You may be right and I may be wrong, but not everything turns out like we expect it to.

2. I don't think they were in their bedroom. I thought they were in the livingroom with the door unlocked. Someone called the cops to the apartment for another reason, and here we are.

3. There is such a thing as local standards, as Illbay has pointed out. Maybe we just don't want perverts in our community.

4. Again, this didn't occur in the bedroom, as I understand the details of the case.

[meyer]

If consensual sex between consenting adults conducted in the privacy of one's bedroom is of no concern to the state (between two gay men), then how could it take a stand against consensual sex between consenting adults conducted in the privacy of one's bedroom (between a paid prostitute and a john)? It's the exact same argument.

Well, I have to ask - Is conventional (normal, heterosexual) sex between consenting adults in privacy prohibited in some states? I don't believe so. With that in mind, how would striking down this sodomy law make any difference WRT prostitution?

[Karsus]

The Constitution also does no grant the right to post to FR. So, according to your logic, if a state (CA,MASS) made it illegal to post to FR you would be ok with that?

[Tina Johnson]

"bedroom" being used here inclusively. You've never had sex on a couch? Come on.

[Illbay]

BINGOBINGOBINGOBINGO.

One of the rare FReepers who gets it. Give the man a cee-gar.

Yes, you're right. The FACT is that the Constitution was struck KNOWING FULL WELL that the state and local governments had far more leeway with things that the COnstitution would never concern itself with.

And you're also right that the states have the right to allow IMMORALITY just as they do MORALITY.

I am four-square against the legalization of narcotics, but I recognize it is the right of any state to make them legal if it wants to--but it then has to contend with the problem of interstate trafficking, and people who don't understand that the Feds DO have a role to play there are just blind.

If legalization of drugs came up in my state of Texas, I'd do anything I could to defeat it. If it passed, I'd probably move so I wouldn't have to live in that society.

The states are laboratories, and should always be. I look at what is going on in the Socialist Republic of California, and I'm glad it's happening there and not here. I recognize their right to create a socialist hell-hole on earth if they want to, but I'm not going to live in it.

[bvw]

Yet privacy is already protected -- to be secure in one's private places and effects. The Forth Amendment. To prosecute a sodomy, due process would have to be followed. We all should hold our priavcy dear, and a sodomy law does not abridge it as it can not be discovered or prosecuted foul of the Fourth's existing protections.

Homosexual sodomy is a criminal act -- if a culture is a good enough one to see an evil for an evil. Are we a culture that confused?

[FreedomCalls]

Because the column was about gays, not prostitution. That's why it wasn't the issue at hand.

What about unintended consequences? If the court strikes down laws on buggery as an unwarranted intrusion into some "right to privacy" then how can call girls be charged with anything illegal?

[Illbay]

That's because you're unable to see the difference between the sexual union of a husband and wife, and sexual perversion.

It's amazing the degree to which the sacred religion of "moral equivalence" promoted by the Left has penetrated the minds of even those who consider themselves "conservatives."