Planning vacations around sodomy

Read that first post by vsp again, Cam.

[richlevy]

One case I remember from Constitutional Law class (no I am not a lawyer) was in Connecticut. The court basically struck down the law because it was silly. This case was used in a dissenting opinion in the next case, which is from 1986 and addresses a law against sodomy, which the court upheld. It was actually argued that a married heterosexual couple is entitled to greater protection and that the law might be more constitutional if it excluded married couples.

BTW, the site for this is at

Supreme Court Decisions Archive at Cornell University Law School

Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965) (USSC+)
Case Information
Griswold v. Connecticut
No. 496

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

381 U.S. 479

March 29-30, 1965

June 7, 1965

APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF ERRORS OF CONNECTICUT

Syllabus
Appellants, the Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, and its medical director, a licensed physician, were convicted as accessories for giving married persons information and medical advice on how to prevent conception and, following examination, prescribing a contraceptive device or material for the wife's use. A Connecticut statute makes it a crime for any person to use any drug or article to prevent conception. Appellants claimed that the accessory statute, as applied, violated the Fourteenth Amendment. An intermediate appellate court and the State's highest court affirmed the judgment.

Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986) (USSC+)
Case Information
Bowers v. Hardwick
No. 85-140

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

478 U.S. 186

March 31, 1986

June 30, 1986

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

Syllabus
After being charged with violating the Georgia statute criminalizing sodomy by committing that act with another adult male in the bedroom of his home, respondent Hardwick (respondent) brought suit in Federal District Court, challenging the constitutionality of the statute insofar as it criminalized consensual sodomy. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, holding that the Georgia statute violated respondent's fundamental rights.

Held: The Georgia statute is constitutional. Pp. 190-196 .

(a) The Constitution does not confer a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy. None of the fundamental rights announced in this Court's prior cases involving family relationships, marriage, or procreation bear any resemblance to the right asserted in this case. And any claim that those cases stand for the proposition that any kind of private sexual conduct between consenting adults is constitutionally insulated from state proscription is unsupportable. Pp. 190-191 .

(b) Against a background in which many States have criminalized sodomy and still do, to claim that a right to engage in such conduct is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" is, at best, facetious. Pp. 191-194 .

(c) There should be great resistance to expand the reach of the Due Process Clauses to cover new fundamental rights. Otherwise, the Judiciary necessarily would take upon itself further authority to govern the country without constitutional authority. The claimed right in this case falls far short of overcoming this resistance. Pp. 194-195 .

(d) The fact that homosexual conduct occurs in the privacy of the home does not affect the result. Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 , distinguished. Pp. 195-196 .

(e) Sodomy laws should not be invalidated on the asserted basis that majority belief that sodomy is immoral is an inadequate rationale to support the laws. P. 196 .

760 F.2d 1202, reversed. [p*187]

[Griff]

If Sen. Santorum (T)*Pa had his way we'd have national laws against private behaviors. As we bag on Radar for believing that individuals have inalienable "natural" rights lets consider the alternative, a country where a simple majority of elected officials can make consensual activities illegal.
















*Taliban

Yeah, I read that. What a tard.

[vsp]

Nothing new here. Santorum's far from alone in believing that states have a valid interest in enforcing "traditional" sexual mores.

From the Slate article I originally quoted:

<i>Smith explains that fundamental rights are understood to apply to decisions about "sexual relations in the home" and decisions about "procreation and non-procreation." Rehnquist interjects that the laws at issue have little to do with "non-procreation." Smith says these laws say "you can't have sexual activity at all" if you are gay and Scalia objects: "They just say you can't have sexual intimacy with a person of the same sex." See? No problem. Homosexuals remain perfectly at liberty to have heterosexual sex in Texas. </i>

Rick Santorum and Antonin Scalia, working together to build a better America...

BTW, I was impressed by who stepped up to the plate _first_ to denounce Santorum's remarks. Not Arlen Specter, not Ed Rendell, not John Street, not anyone from Pennsylvania... but _Howard Dean_. (Kerry threw in a me-too soon after.) If you hear a cha-CHING in the distance, it's a small donation going to Dean's campaign fund.

[Whit]

As we bag on Radar for believing that individuals have inalienable "natural" rights

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Er, actualy I think most people were bagging on him for acting like he was the one that decided what our "inalienable natural rights" are. I know I'm splitting hairs but I think the distiction is important.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The subject of this thread is a good example. Why the hell does the goverment care what people do in their bedrooms? Oh, because it will lead to general badness in the world. Of course! How could I have missed that?
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Seriously though, this is a case of goverment overstepping. Fortunately a lot of legislators agree that it's not their place. So, however slowly, this kind of law is being removed from state after state. If you clic on the link telling about what state sodomy laws are in place you'll notice several have been repealed. I think it's a trend.

[Griff]

Admittedly, I wasn't following the arguement to closely. From what I read, I thought you both were intentionally misunderstanding each other (Radars personality makes that inevitable). There are lottsa holes in the natural rights argument, yours about which rights are counted among them is especially important. I'd add my own doubts about natural rights in a godless universe which is Radars angle.

What I'm left with is the Bill of Rights and the original restrictions on government found in the constitution. I don't much like the alternative to strict constitutionalism, which is todays reality, that all activity is the perview of the government. We may think its not because of the positive trend you note at the state level, but if its a choice politicians can make it is governments business. Anyway I'm rambling so I'll just stop.

[Griff]

Rush is defending Rickey today, spinning his comments as best he can. Can anyone supply a link to the original interview, so we can put it all in context?

[vsp]

I'm REALLY looking forward to Rush trying to defend <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/04/22/national1737EDT0668.DTL">the rest of the interview</a>.

A few choice bits:

<i>SANTORUM: I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts. As I would with acts of other, what I would consider to be, acts outside of traditional heterosexual relationships. And that includes a variety of different acts, not just homosexual.</i>
...
<i>SANTORUM: That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.</i>
...
<i>SANTORUM: And that's sort of where we are in today's world, unfortunately. The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire. And we're seeing it in our society. </i>
...
<i>SANTORUM: The right to privacy lifestyle.

AP: What's the alternative?

SANTORUM: In this case, what we're talking about, basically, is priests who were having sexual relations with post-pubescent men. We're not talking about priests with 3-year-olds, or 5-year-olds. We're talking about a basic homosexual relationship. Which, again, according to the world view sense is a a perfectly fine relationship as long as it's consensual between people. </i>

Priests nailing altar boys == "a basic homosexual relationship."

Oh-KAY then.

[Undertoad]

FWIW, the whole notion of natural rights is pretty young. In historical terms the whole notion of freedom is rather young.

But we who love individual rights have great reason to be optimistic, because in the big picture, the world is really converting to our viewpoint.

Economically, the advantages are just too obvious now. The whole war in the future will be over what level of mixed economy is ideal, not whether a centrally-planned economy is better than a mixed one. Amazing as it seems now, people used to wonder whether the tyrants might be right, but a century of social experimentation only led to about 100,000,000 deaths...

As far as individual liberties go, it's a harder fight, but I also believe the trend has been towards them for a long time. It's just hard to see because we are in the middle of it.

There are two really cool trends going on worldwide. One is the end of scarcity. The human race is really getting good at providing for itself AND its planet; new numbers say we are more productive AND pollute less. The other is the end of the population boom predicted in the 70s. Birth rates are declining even in the third-world.

As we find we have enough, it lowers our desperation to control in order to guarantee access to resources. Look at how the Arabic culture became tribal: it did so as a result of living in a place with few resources. Now that this is no longer a problem, in the long run people's attitudes will become less tribal, less warlike, more civil.

As we increase our capability for communication, we virtually guarantee a decline in concentration of power. Simple statements - not even actions - of people like Lott and Santorum lead to actual losses in their power. (Santorum's loss will not be losing the 2006 election, which would be very unlikely, but in being taken less seriously on the national level; he's now a "marked man" of sorts for a while. Just you watch.)

[Whit]

SANTORUM: You have the problem within the church. Again, it goes back to this moral relativism, which is very accepting of a variety of different lifestyles. And if you make the case that if you can do whatever you want to do, as long as it's in the privacy of your own home, this "right to privacy," then why be surprised that people are doing things that are deviant within their own home? If you say, there is no deviant as long as it's private, as long as it's consensual, then don't be surprised what you get. You're going to get a lot of things that you're sending signals that as long as you do it privately and consensually, we don't really care what you do. And that leads to a culture that is not one that is nurturing and necessarily healthy.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Am I the only one that dislikes the term "moral relativism?" It just seems like morals are relative by nature. The Spanish Inqusition were following their moral code after all. The use of this term fell like it's pigeon holing the idea. As well as suggesting that it's wrong, in context...
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Wow, if you're gay you are inherently non-nurturing it seems. Huh, I've met some gay guy's that I thought were awfully girly about trying to take care of everything and everyone. I realize that this isn't nurturing per se, but I do think it's related. Go figure.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I would agree that if you let people do whatever they want in private then they will. Often times it'll be something that I'd not want to be involved with in any way. I just don't see why I should I assume that my way is noble and theirs is wrong. Even if my way is traditional that doesn't make it "right". It just makes it traditional. At one point human sacrifice was traditional. Doesn't mean it's the way to go? 'Sides, there's a lot of homosexual activity in history and it hasn't destroyed the Earth yet.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Hey Griff, for the record I wasn't intentionaly misunderstanding him, I was just being a dick about not accepting "Facts" which were actually opinions. Even if I agreed with the opinion. I'm not the only one either.

[vsp]

Originally posted by Undertoad
Simple statements - not even actions - of people like Lott and Santorum lead to actual losses in their power. (Santorum's loss will not be losing the 2006 election, which would be very unlikely, but in being taken less seriously on the national level; he's now a "marked man" of sorts for a while. Just you watch.)

I wouldn't cater Santorum's 2006 victory dinner just yet. Not that this specific scandal will be what sinks him (though people like me DO take notes and don't forget things like this), but he didn't exactly blow Ron Klink (a relatively weak Dem candidate) out of the water last time. The margin of victory was something like 2.4M-2.1M, with around 100K voting for other parties.

Now figure in that Rendell will be running at the same time as Santorum, and will help bring Democratic voters to the polls in 2006. It can't hurt. A lot depends on who runs against Santorum then.

And there are little ways of keeping Santorum's charming position statements in the public eye in the meantime. If press releases from the North American Man-On-Dog Love Association start popping up, I know NOTHING.

[vsp]

Originally posted by Whit
Am I the only one that dislikes the term "moral relativism?"

"Moral relativism," of course, being a code word for "people who don't think like _WE_ do" to religious conservatives.

After all, Santorum knows that right and wrong are binary states and that the Bible -- excuse me, the law -- doesn't allow for shades of gray. Just ask him!

[xoxoxoBruce]

Does anyone else think that we should just start over?

Aw man..give me a minute. Lemme have a smoke and then I'll be ready. Are you sure the web cam's off?

Er, actualy I think most people were bagging on him for acting like he was the one that decided what our "inalienable natural rights" are.

AND for being a pompous ass.

As far as individual liberties go, it's a harder fight, but I also believe the trend has been towards them for a long time.

I feel one reason is a lot of people are less afraid of being ostracized and more willing tospeak out.

[russotto]

Originally posted by Undertoad

But we who love individual rights have great reason to be optimistic, because in the big picture, the world is really converting to our viewpoint.

Really? All I see around me is the walls of a handbasket, and it's getting mighty hot.

As far as individual liberties go, it's a harder fight, but I also believe the trend has been towards them for a long time. It's just hard to see because we are in the middle of it.

As far as I can tell, the trend has stopped, reversed, and is heading inexorably the other way. Most people don't _WANT_ individual liberties any more. As long as they've got the illusion of safety, they don't care what the authorities do, and they don't mind being told what to do -- they can't even imagine how it would have worked any other way.

As for Santorum; he's a Republican, did you expect him to say NICE things about homosexuality? I don't agree with his views but I hardly think that having disagreeable views should be an automatic bar to holding office -- it's too easy to apply that one in the other direction.