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Posted on 01/17/2003 2:25:27 PM PST by Robert_Paulson2
Jan. 16, 2003, 6:45PM
Supreme Court urged to kill Texas' sodomy law
Associated Perss
Lambda Legal, which represents the two men, and several other organizations have asked the Supreme Court to declare the state's anti-sodomy law unconstitutional.
"Some of the most diverse and respected voices in this country are lining up to tell the Supreme Court that these laws are contrary to American values," said Ruth Harlow, the lead attorney on the case and legal director at Lambda Legal. "This is a tremendously important case for gay people and for everyone who believes in basic freedoms."
Sodomy is defined as abnormal sex, and some state laws include anal and oral sex in that definition. Nine states ban consensual sodomy for everyone: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia. Texas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma punish only homosexual sodomy.
In December, the Supreme Court said it would review the prosecution of the two Houston men under a 28-year-old Texas anti-sodomy law.
The case began when sheriff's deputies, responding to a false report of an armed intruder, went into John Lawrence's apartment and discovered him having sex with Tyron Garner. Both men spent the night in the Harris County Jail and were released the next day.
Lawrence and Garner pleaded no contest and were fined $200 each. The sodomy law was a felony until 1974, when it was reduced to a misdemeanor that today carries a maximum $500 fine.
They won a brief victory when a state appeals court panel overturned the convictions and ruled the law unconstitutional. However, the full court reversed the ruling and affirmed the convictions and the law.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court, refused to hear the case, making the Supreme Court the next and final possible step.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in 1986 that consenting adults have no constitutional right to private homosexual sex, upholding laws that ban sodomy.
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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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The case began when sheriff's deputies, responding to a false report of an armed intruder, went into John Lawrence's apartment and discovered him having sex with Tyron Garner. Both men spent the night in the Harris County Jail ...... where they met Ben Dover ...
We might still be counting chads in Florida if that were truly the case. Sometimes it's those state legislatures themselves that made the stupid law in question.
Ummm... why would you want to do that?
The Florida Supreme Court tried to redefine election standards after the votes had been cast.
The US Supreme Court would not let such action stand.
I still alledge that the 2 convicted men (and their convicted gay ex-lover neighbor, the one who made the false call) conspired to create the scenario by which they were "caught" in the privacy of their own home.
You a liberal or something? You still believe that laws just stop activity you don't like?
While you're at it, why not pass some laws to ban drugs and guns?
It will be heard, and anti-sodomy laws will be overturned. The 1986 vote in Bowers vs. Georgia was 5-4 and, years later, Justice White said it was the worst decision he ever made and wished that he'd voted the other way (from supporting the laws to voiding them.) Since that time, the Supremes ruled against Colorado in that infamous pro-gay decision.
I can't resist this one. Can you define oral and anal sex for me? Is kissing oral sex? What about kissing the belly button? Inner thighs? Pubic region? Or does there have to be specific genital contact? Does an orgasm have to be involved?
The point here is, the gov't has no business in your bedroom in the first place shining a flashlight under your bedsheets in order to clearly define when your lips actually touch your partner's thing-a-lingy. What me and my wife do in our bed- that's nobody's business.
Sure you can make a law, but what's the point of the law if the only way to enforce it is for the gov't to go where they have no business going? And what does a law proscribing what my wife and I do in bed actually protect? How are you harmed by the things we do in our bedroom? What is this law for?
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