6/26/2003

Well, they're at it again. The Supreme Court is finishing off its cases...
I guess we're slowly following in the steps of Canada. Everyone knew that the Canada ruling would influence the United States...at least in the future. Maybe sooner than ever. What a shame. Here's the NYTimes article, Supreme Court Strikes Down Texas Law Banning Sodomy said. The ruling? 6-3. Basically overturning the Bowers case of the '80s. (oddly enough, that ever elusive O'Conner sided w/ the majority in the Bowers case, but switched this time.) Okay, it's not that odd. I could see it coming.

Scalia, Thomas and Rehnquist all dissented. To read a real argument that includes some critical thinking--read Scalia's scalding response!. It's the first dissent, or at the bottom of the general page, after you get through all the other crap, excuse me, opinions. =)

Unfortunately, a lot of the news media, which probably haven't actually read through the dissent argument, is portraying the three dissenters in a very bad light. But, when you sit down and read it. It makes sense.

Here's an excerpt: (it's really very witty!)

Today's opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct. I noted in an earlier opinion the fact that the American Association of Law Schools (to which any reputable law school must seek to belong) excludes from membership any school that refuses to ban from its job-interview facilities a law firm (no matter how small) that does not wish to hire as a prospective partner a person who openly engages in homosexual conduct. See Romer, supra, at 653.

....

Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means. Social perceptions of sexual and other morality change over time, and every group has the right to persuade its fellow citizens that its view of such matters is the best. That homosexuals have achieved some success in that enterprise is attested to by the fact that Texas is one of the few remaining States that criminalize private, consensual homosexual acts. But persuading one's fellow citizens is one thing, and imposing one's views in absence of democratic majority will is something else. I would no more require a State to criminalize homosexual acts--or, for that matter, display any moral disapprobation of them--than I would forbid it to do so. What Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional democratic action, and its hand should not be stayed through the invention of a brand-new "constitutional right" by a Court that is impatient of democratic change. It is indeed true that "later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress," ante, at 18; and when that happens, later generations can repeal those laws. But it is the premise of our system that those judgments are to be made by the people, and not imposed by a governing caste that knows best.


Well, that's enough for now. If you read it, he makes a lot of very good points.

Final note: Scalia is soooo kewl!

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