Texas sodomy ruling likely to ruffle feathers

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Marney aren't you a Christian, or am I totally off on that one?

No, you're not. I'm Catholic, specifically Jesuit.

[Guest SP-1]

Actually, Mormons aren't. The others I would be more or less tempted to agree with, but Mormons pervert the identity of God. They don't believe in the same God that the others do.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

They have an angel called Moroni, and I figure I can't really comment any further than that.

[Your Paragon of Virtue]

A Mormon tried to convert me on the bus a few weeks back. Hilarity ensued.

[Guest stardust]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...scotus_sodomy_8

 

By ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writer

 

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court struck down a ban on gay sex Thursday, 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.

 

Laws forbidding homosexual sex, once universal, now are rare. 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.

 

Justices John Paul Stevens (news - web sites), David Souter (news - web sites), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (news - web sites) and Stephen Breyer (news - web sites) agreed with Kennedy in full. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (news - web sites) agreed with the outcome of the case but not all of Kennedy's rationale.

 

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia (news - web sites) and Clarence Thomas (news - web sites) dissented.

 

"The court has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda," Scalia wrote for the three. He took the unusual step of reading his dissent from the bench.

 

"The court has taken sides in the culture war," Scalia said, adding 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.

 

Of the 13 states with sodomy laws, four — Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri — prohibit oral and anal sex between same-sex couples. The other nine ban consensual sodomy for everyone: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia.

 

Thursday's ruling apparently invalidates those laws as well.

 

The Supreme Court was widely criticized 17 years ago when it upheld an antisodomy law similar to Texas'. The ruling became a rallying point for gay activists.

 

Of the nine justices who ruled on the 1986 case, only three remain on the court. Rehnquist was in the majority in that case — Bowers v. Hardwick — as was O'Connor. Stevens dissented.

 

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.

 

At the time of the court's earlier ruling, 24 states criminalized such behavior. States that have since repealed the laws include Georgia, where the 1986 case arose.

 

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.

 

The case is Lawrence v. Texas, 02-102.

 

For those of you interested in the ruling.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

Very good news.

Edited June 26, 2003 by Tyler McClelland

[Guest La Parka Es Mi Papa]

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.

 

Oh, heaven forbid. Sigh, only in Texas.

[Guest NoCalMike]

good ruling.

[Guest Powerplay]

I find it a bad ruling because of what right it was argued under. Honestly, this case would have been far FAR better suited (And Stronger as well) under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th rather than the Right to Privacy. I'm not in favor of sodomy laws, but the ruling still wasn't a really good one.

[Guest JMA]

Of the 13 states with sodomy laws, four — Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri — prohibit oral and anal sex between same-sex couples. The other nine ban consensual sodomy for everyone: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia.

Wait... you can't have anal or oral sex if you live in Alabama? I've never heard of that (and I live in Alabama). Weird.

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

CNN story: "Jesus box" exposed as fake

 

Just thought I'd throw in this link, mostly for the last line in the article:

While most scholars agree that Jesus existed, no physical evidence from the first century has ever been conclusively tied with his life.

(emphasis mine)

Physical evidence is the opposite of faith. Faith, by its nature is illogical.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Pity St Augustine, St Aquinas, St Anselm, et al didn't have you around to set them straight.

 

 

 

 

 

"The hosts were sandalled, and their wings were fire!

(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)

But their noise played havoc with the angel-choir..."

Edited June 27, 2003 by Cancer Marney

[Guest Vyce]

Supreme Court: Texans Too Stupid To Rule State

(2003-06-26) -- In a little noticed addendum to today's Lawrence and Garner v. Texas decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the citizens of Texas are not intelligent enough to rule their own state.

 

Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy noted, "Representative government is a good notion as far as it goes. But the citizens of Texas clearly lack the mental ability to elect representatives and make laws properly. We'll be keeping eye on them to protect them from themselves."

 

Justice Kennedy also wrote that "citizens of many other states probably lack the intellectual capacity to rule themselves as well, which is why the Supreme Court exists, and why none of us can afford to retire. Imagine what would become of this nation without our sovereign rule."

[Guest godthedog]

Pity St Augustine, St Aquinas, St Anselm, et al didn't have you around to set them straight.

pity they didn't have kierkegaard around either.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

...

 

Did you just compare Zsasz to Kierkegaard?

[Guest godthedog]

sadly, yes. they both have the same essential point. now, i have no doubt that kierkegaard could defend the claim better than zsasz, since he had that whole "smart" thing going for him. but they both argue that rationality can't be reconciled with faith.

[Guest Vyce]

...

 

Did you just compare Zsasz to Kierkegaard?

Shit, he did.

 

Every day, I lose a little more faith in humanity.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

they both have the same essential point. now, i have no doubt that kierkegaard could defend the claim better than zsasz, since he had that whole "smart" thing going for him. but they both argue that rationality can't be reconciled with faith.

Not at all. Kierkegaard considered faith to be translogical, not irrational. He'd never have said something as meaningless as "evidence is the opposite of faith." Faith doesn't need evidence, but that doesn't mean it would be damaged by it. I don't particularly like Kierkegaard, mainly because he's a bit too whiny for my tastes, but he was never stupid.

[Guest Vern Gagne]

Supreme Court: Texans Too Stupid To Rule State

(2003-06-26) -- In a little noticed addendum to today's Lawrence and Garner v. Texas decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the citizens of Texas are not intelligent enough to rule their own state.

 

Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy noted, "Representative government is a good notion as far as it goes. But the citizens of Texas clearly lack the mental ability to elect representatives and make laws properly. We'll be keeping eye on them to protect them from themselves."

 

Justice Kennedy also wrote that "citizens of many other states probably lack the intellectual capacity to rule themselves as well, which is why the Supreme Court exists, and why none of us can afford to retire. Imagine what would become of this nation without our sovereign rule."

Good one.

 

Does some have the view of the majority, and the view of the dissenters on this ruling?

[Guest godthedog]

they both have the same essential point. now, i have no doubt that kierkegaard could defend the claim better than zsasz, since he had that whole "smart" thing going for him. but they both argue that rationality can't be reconciled with faith.

Not at all. Kierkegaard considered faith to be translogical, not irrational. He'd never have said something as meaningless as "evidence is the opposite of faith." Faith doesn't need evidence, but that doesn't mean it would be damaged by it. I don't particularly like Kierkegaard, mainly because he's a bit too whiny for my tastes, but he was never stupid.

bit of a late reply, but why not...from 'concluding unscientific postscript to philosophical fragments':

 

"'Contingent historical truths can never become a demonstration of eternal truths...also...the transition whereby one will build an eternal truth on historical reports is a leap.' Lessing contests the direct transition from historical reliability to a decision on an eternal happiness. [Kierkegaard goes on to agree with Lessing on this point.]" (74-76)

 

"Only momentarily can a particular individual, existing, be in a unity of the infinite and the finite that transcends existing. This instant is the moment of passion." (164)

 

"Without risk, no faith. Faith is the contradiction between the infinite passion of inwardness and the objective uncertainty. If I am able to apprehend God objectively, I do not have faith; but because I cannot do this, I must have faith. If I want to keep myself in faith, I must continually see to it that I hold fast the objective uncertainty, see to it that in the objective uncertainty I am "out on 70,000 fathoms of water" and still have faith." (171)

 

"Truth as paradox corresponds to passion, and that truth becomes a paradox is grounded precisely in its relation to an existing subject." (166)

 

"Socratic ignorance is an analog to the category of the absurd, except that there is even less objective certainty that it is absurd, and for that very reason there is infinitely greater resilience in the inwardness...The inwardness of faith, corresponding not to the repulsion exerted by ignorance but to the repulsion exerted by the absurd, is infinitely deeper." (172)

 

faith is the passion from recognizing the paradox of christianity (that eternity entered into time), and embracing the absurdity of it. objectively, it is absurd (at least for kierkegaard), and faith comes from a rejection of that entire objective thinking.

 

you may take the quotes with a grain of salt since that book was written under one of his pseudonyms, but that general philosophy seems to fit well with everything else i've read by him.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Contingent historical truths can never become a demonstration of eternal truths...also...the transition whereby one will build an eternal truth on historical reports is a leap.

That postulates a translogical definition rather than an illogical one. Again:

If I am able to apprehend God objectively, I do not have faith; but because I cannot do this, I must have faith.

It's not that evidence for God's existence weakens faith or somehow constitutes its opposite; it's simply the idea that evidence is irrelevant to faith. They are on separate planes and cannot be meaningfully related to each other. As for the other quotes, much of Kierkegaard's writings under his pseudonyms were (at least in the initial passages) intended to be straw men that he could turn around and subsequently attack; that always struck me as appallingly dishonest, and therefore, after I ploughed through the first, I've never had any interest in reading more of them. Arguments should stand on their own without support from intentionally flawed bullshit made up solely in order to be refuted. That is the mark of a deceitful evangelist and a demagogue, not a philosophical investigator.

[Guest godthedog]

i think we're arguing about two different things. you're taking up the "evidence is the opposite of faith" one that zsasz said, and i'm taking up the "faith is irrational" one.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

You're right. <g> I thought you were saying that Kierkegaard said what Zsasz said, which he didn't, as far as I know.

[Guest godthedog]

well, he said

Physical evidence is the opposite of faith.

and then said

Faith, by its nature is illogical.

so you took the first, i took the second.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Right.

[Firestarter]

If homosexuality is unnatural and wicked, SP, explain why animals indulge in homosexual behaviour across innumerable species and practically every known genus...

Does it really make any sense... to create countless creatures which can and do freely indulge in [homosexuality] and then proclaim that for ONE species and ONE species alone that behaviour is verboten? Or do the gulls get to burn in hell for all eternity as well? Squawk squawk squawk!

Bumped, because I'm still waiting for an answer from SpiderPoet on this one. I'm easily amused by a piss-poor understanding of elementary science combined with theological convolutions so ridiculous they make selling the Pope's shit seem almost reasonable.

[Spicy McHaggis]

What's the evolutionary advantage of homosexual behavior?

[Firestarter]

What's the point of the question?

[Spicy McHaggis]

To understand why animals, whose job it is to propagate the species, would engage in an activity that doesn't allow them to do that.

[Firestarter]

Well, that would entail some sort of understanding of why any species engages in homosexual behaviour at all, and that isn't a question we have the answer to at this time.