Ironworks Gaming Forum

Ironworks Gaming Forum (http://www.ironworksforum.com/forum/index.php)
-   General Conversation Archives (11/2000 - 01/2005) (http://www.ironworksforum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=28)
-   -   A victory for human rights. (http://www.ironworksforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=86791)

IronDragon 06-26-2003 01:10 PM

Court overturns Texas sodomy law
Justices say it violates Constitution’s equal protection clause

WASHINGTON, June 26 — In a major victory for gay rights advocates, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a Texas statute that bans gay couples — but not heterosexuals — from engaging in sodomy, ruling that the law was an unconstitutional violation of privacy.

THE 6-3 RULING reverses course from a ruling 17 years ago that states could punish homosexuals for what such laws historically called deviant sex.

The case is a major re-examination of the rights and acceptance of gay people in the United States. More broadly, it also tests a state’s ability to makes crimes of what goes on behind the closed bedroom doors of consenting adults.
Thursday’s ruling invalidated a Texas law against “deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex.”

The law “demeans the lives of homosexual persons,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority.

Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer agreed with Kennedy in full. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor agreed with the outcome of the case but not all of Kennedy’s rationale. She indicated that the law should have been overturned on grounds that it violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause.

Laws forbidding homosexual sex, once universal, now are rare.
SIMILAR LAWS ALSO INVALIDATED

Similar laws outlawing sodomy — defined as oral or anal intercourse — between gay or lesbian couples are on the books in Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri and apparently were invalidated by Thursday’s ruling.
Nine other states have banned sodomy for both heterosexuals and homosexuals. It was not immediately clear whether the ruling also would strike them. Those on the books are rarely enforced but underpin other kinds of discrimination, lawyers for two Texas men had argued to the court. The men “are entitled to respect for their private lives,” Kennedy wrote. “The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime,” he said.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented. Scalia, who wrote the dissenting opinion, took the unusual step of reading his dissent from the bench.
DISSENT CITES ‘CULTURE WAR’ “The court has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda,” he said. “The court has taken sides in the culture war.”

Scalia added that he has “nothing against homosexuals.”
The two men at the heart of the case, John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner, have retreated from public view. They were each fined $200 and spent a night in jail for the misdemeanor sex charge in 1998.

The case began when a neighbor with a grudge faked a distress call to police, telling them that a man was “going crazy” in Lawrence’s apartment. Police went to the apartment, pushed open the door and found the two men having anal sex.

As recently as 1960, every state had an anti-sodomy law. In 37 states, the statutes have been repealed by lawmakers or blocked by state courts. The Supreme Court was widely criticized 17 years ago when it upheld an antisodomy law similar to Texas’. The ruling became a touchstone for gay activists.

A long list of legal and medical groups joined gay rights and human rights supporters in backing the Texas men. Many friend-of-the-court briefs argued that times have changed since 1986, and that the court should catch up.
The court’s most recent previous ruling in this area came in 1986 when, by a 5-to-4 vote, it upheld a Georgia law outlawing sodomy.

In that case, Bowers v. Hardwick, the five-justice majority said “we are quite unwilling” to declare “a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy.”

The majority said in the Bowers decision that for a right to be deemed fundamental it had to be “deeply rooted in this nation’s history and tradition.” And, they said, legalized sodomy was not part of the history and tradition of the country.

Of the current members of the court, Rehnquist and O’Connor joined the majority in the Bowers decision. Stevens was one of the four dissenters in Bowers.

Thursday’s ruling was based on arguments by the plaintiffs’ attorneys that because the men were arrested in a private residence while engaging in consensual sex, the raid amounted to an unconstitutional invasion of privacy.

It did not address a second legal point raised by the plaintiffs, that by mandating disparate treatment for two classes of citizens, the statute violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

Defenders of the law said that any state has a right to set its own moral standards and that those who wrote the 14th Amendment never intended it to protect gays and lesbians. The 14th Amendment was written in 1867 to ensure that the ex-slaves did not become a permanent servile class, subjugated by state laws.

Texas defended its sodomy law as in keeping with the state’s interest in protecting marriage and child-rearing. Homosexual sodomy, the state argued in legal papers, “has nothing to do with marriage or conception or parenthood and it is not on a par with these sacred choices.” The state had urged the court to draw a constitutional line “at the threshold of the marital bedroom.”

Although Texas itself did not make the argument, some of the state’s supporters told the justices in friend-of-the-court filings that invalidating sodomy laws could take the court down the path of allowing same-sex marriage.

Rokenn 06-26-2003 01:15 PM

On the radio they were reading portions of Scalia's dissent and one of the first lines in it is that this will allow bestiality. Why is it that whenever gay rights advance the first thing the conservatives drag out is animal sex? Are they repressing something? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Arvon 06-26-2003 01:33 PM

Seems to me this ruling flys in the face of the 9 and 10th amendments.

MagiK 06-26-2003 01:56 PM

<font face="COMIC Sans MS" size="3" color="#7c9bc4">
Bugger it all!

oh and I agree with Arvon. :D
</font>

[ 06-26-2003, 01:56 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

Djinn Raffo 06-26-2003 01:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by MagiK:
<font face="COMIC Sans MS" size="3" color="#7c9bc4">
Bugger it all!

oh and I agree with Arvon. :D
</font>

roflmao.. nice pun..

MagiK 06-26-2003 02:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Rokenn:
On the radio they were reading portions of Scalia's dissent and one of the first lines in it is that this will allow bestiality. Why is it that whenever gay rights advance the first thing the conservatives drag out is animal sex? Are they repressing something? [img]tongue.gif[/img]
<font face="COMIC Sans MS" size="3" color="#7c9bc4">
While I realize you were being humorous, Id like to address the underlying principle...by allowing that there is an "Absolute right to privacy" any number of things, Including Beastiality, Incest and molestaion can occur under this legal "shield" They point out Beastiality first and foremost probably because like "most" people they find the thought disgusting and think that it will illustrate their point. Scalia is not a stupid man, and you should give him some credit for his common sense....there is at least one person on that bench that just reversed her previous opinions and ovtes...she caved in to social pressure from gay rights activists....You know...they aren't supposed to MAKE law up there....but this ruling comes pretty close if not actually doing it.

As always just my opinion, take it or leave it as you see fit [img]smile.gif[/img] </font>

IronDragon 06-26-2003 02:10 PM

Quote:

Arvon said
Seems to me this ruling flys in the face of the 9 and 10th amendments.
I’m not surre where your coming up with this Arvon but you are way off .

Amendment 9: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

This amendment basicaly states that individuals have rights even though they may not be specifically ennumerated in the constitution itself. Primary among these (according to the Supreme Court) is the right ot privacy. In this case the Court is saying that consenting adults do have the right to privacy.

Amendment 10: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Basically the justices said that this ruling was covered by the 14th amendment and it’s equal protection clause. The 14th amendment, like any amendment is considered tobe part of the constitution. The equal protection of all citizens of this country is part of the constitution and therefore not left to the states to decide if they will protect only some of its citizens but the federal government who is charged to provide equal protection to ALL citizens.

Attalus 06-26-2003 02:16 PM

Where, oh where, is that "ultra-conservative Supreme Court" that the Dems like to talk about handing the election to GWB? Well, this just shows how important 2004 is going to be.

Rokenn 06-26-2003 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Attalus:
Where, oh where, is that "ultra-conservative Supreme Court" that the Dems like to talk about handing the election to GWB? Well, this just shows how important 2004 is going to be.
What is so liberal about the court ruling the government should not have the right to barge into the bedroom of consenting adults and tell them how they can love each other? Sounds pretty conservitive to me.

IronDragon 06-26-2003 02:37 PM

Quote:

What is so liberal about the court ruling the government should not have the right to barge into the bedroom of consenting adults and tell them how they can love each other? Sounds pretty conservitive to me.
I think conservatives want to be able to barge into SOME peoples bedrooms. Their bedrooms are of course off limits.


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 04:53 PM.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.3
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
©2024 Ironworks Gaming & ©2024 The Great Escape Studios TM - All Rights Reserved