No, I understand my quote quite clearly. And I understand the context of Lawrence. And most importantly, I understand the demogoguish stance you take towards it and your flawed logic.
And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery.
The Court said no such thing. What it did say is that people have a constitutional right to privacy regarding consensual relations, of which homosexual relations is one. This has nothing to do with gay marriage, which is a question of the state sanctioning a relationship for legal purposes, and certainly nothing to do with incest, bestiality, or pederasty, because, and I shouldn't even have to explain this, those are relations that can be showed to involve coercion or lack of consent. Polygamy is a different question, which I don't have an answer to.
Your statement was: once you allow homosexuality (or in fact fail to criminalize it) you are immediately on the slippery slope to the legalization of bigamy, bestiality and pederasty. It is not an issue of allowing homosexuality. It is an issue of finding a Constitutional right to sodomy. Those are two completely different concepts that you mischaracterized.
No, I didn't mischaracterize. You choose to portray it as a Constitutional "right" to sodomy. My "parsing" of your words suggests that you believe that it is effectively a state sanction or endorsement of such activities. This is simply untrue. Rather, the Court simply says that it is unconstitutional for laws to ban such activities amongst consenting adults who are protected by the 14th Amendment, among others. This distinction may mean little to you. Even if I took your stance, that it suggests a right to sodomy, this simply doesn't extend to other more repugnant activities for the reasons stated above. Your slippery slope has a few potholes in it, and gay marriage isn't one of them.
As for your attack on "activist" judges, as I read it, I'm not sure what your problem is. Apparently you believe that legislative processes should trump all, despite arguable unconstitutionality, or for that matter, the mercurial nature of some of our lawmakers. If you want to revise the separation of powers doctrine, you should just come out and say that, rather than argue circuitously about judges simply because you disagree with the outcome of their decisions. Based on your logic, we'd still have Jim Crow laws and segregation as the law of the land. Or do the guys in black pajamas become venerable legal experts when you agree with them? And would you suddenly start arguing about federalism if George W. Bush were suddenly John Kerry?
And the question is not whether you give a damn about the NWS issue - rather would you care if it were Hillary Rodham Clinton as the sponsor and not the great mind of Rick Santorum?
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"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security" - Benjamin Franklin
"Don't you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we're left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here." - Alvy Singer, "Annie Hall"
And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery.
The Court said no such thing. What it did say is that people have a constitutional right to privacy regarding consensual relations, of which homosexual relations is one. This has nothing to do with gay marriage, which is a question of the state sanctioning a relationship for legal purposes, and certainly nothing to do with incest, bestiality, or pederasty, because, and I shouldn't even have to explain this, those are relations that can be showed to involve coercion or lack of consent. Polygamy is a different question, which I don't have an answer to.
Your statement was: once you allow homosexuality (or in fact fail to criminalize it) you are immediately on the slippery slope to the legalization of bigamy, bestiality and pederasty. It is not an issue of allowing homosexuality. It is an issue of finding a Constitutional right to sodomy. Those are two completely different concepts that you mischaracterized.
No, I didn't mischaracterize. You choose to portray it as a Constitutional "right" to sodomy. My "parsing" of your words suggests that you believe that it is effectively a state sanction or endorsement of such activities. This is simply untrue. Rather, the Court simply says that it is unconstitutional for laws to ban such activities amongst consenting adults who are protected by the 14th Amendment, among others. This distinction may mean little to you. Even if I took your stance, that it suggests a right to sodomy, this simply doesn't extend to other more repugnant activities for the reasons stated above. Your slippery slope has a few potholes in it, and gay marriage isn't one of them.
As for your attack on "activist" judges, as I read it, I'm not sure what your problem is. Apparently you believe that legislative processes should trump all, despite arguable unconstitutionality, or for that matter, the mercurial nature of some of our lawmakers. If you want to revise the separation of powers doctrine, you should just come out and say that, rather than argue circuitously about judges simply because you disagree with the outcome of their decisions. Based on your logic, we'd still have Jim Crow laws and segregation as the law of the land. Or do the guys in black pajamas become venerable legal experts when you agree with them? And would you suddenly start arguing about federalism if George W. Bush were suddenly John Kerry?
And the question is not whether you give a damn about the NWS issue - rather would you care if it were Hillary Rodham Clinton as the sponsor and not the great mind of Rick Santorum?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security" - Benjamin Franklin
"Don't you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we're left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here." - Alvy Singer, "Annie Hall"
Last edited by:
trio_jeepy: Apr 22, 05 23:12