Bryan Fischer
Does Anthony Kennedy regret the immoral Lawrence decision?
By Bryan Fischer
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
Anthony Kennedy wrote the infamous Lawrence v. Texas decision that made laws against sodomy unenforceable in America. The Court issued this egregious display of arrogant and immoral judicial activism despite the fact that sodomy had been a criminal offense in all 50 States until 1961 and was still against the law in 24 States and the District of Columbia when the Lawrence decision was issued.
So in one fell swoop the Court deprived almost half the Union of the right to self-governance through their elected representatives, the essence of a republican form of government, and imposed its own twisted version of morality on the entire country. And here we thought imposing your values on others was supposed to be bad! Silly us for believing that swill.
It is not possible that there is a constitutional right to engage in sodomy. Sodomy was a criminal offense in all 13 States at the time the Bill of Rights was passed, so no luck there.
There cannot possibly be a 14th Amendment right to engage in sodomy, because it was a criminal offense in 32 of the 37 States when it was ratified. So no luck there either.
Scalia noted in his dissent that prosecutions under sodomy statutes were not as rare as one might think. There were 20 sodomy prosecutions in the colonial period, 203 recorded prosecutions from 1880-1995, and even 134 reported prosecutions in the half-century prior to Lawrence. His point was simply that designating homosexual conduct as immoral and contrary to public morals is a longstanding principle of American jurisprudence. It is rooted in our history.
No, you can read the Constitution from front to back, back to front, upside down, from right to left and hanging from a chandelier and you will find no mention whatsoever of any right to engage in sodomy. You won't find it because it's not there. It simply does not exist as a constitutional right, no matter what the fevered brains of six black-robed tyrants said in 2003.
In fact, the Supreme Court correctly ruled in 1999 that "a person has no constitutional right to engage in sexual intercourse, at least outside of marriage." It is perfectly permissible and constitutional to take all forms of sexual intercourse that occur outside the union of one man and one woman in marriage and make them contrary to public policy.
But carried along by the sirocco of secular fundamentalism, Anthony Kennedy, as Antonin Scalia observed, removed the last barrier to the legalization of "bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity." It is now just a matter of time before these evils are given legitimacy and consume what remains of America's soul.
Scalia pungently remarked that Lawrence v. Texas would be devastating to America's cultural fabric. Said Scalia, "This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation."
Scalia knew what this ruling meant. "Today's opinion is the product of a Court...that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda...[T]he Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed."
Now apparently even Justice Kennedy is becoming uneasy about the toxic fumes his own ruling has released into American society. He is now expressing open concern about the corrosive effect of "moral relativism."
Speaking at Heritage Foundation last week, Kennedy said, "Relativism leads to skepticism, skepticism leads to cynicism, and cynicism is corrosive to basic human values...If you have moral relativism as the public philosophy, you have a problem with telling the importance of our heritage. Teachers are reluctant to say someone was good, a hero. That an event doesn't have an ethical and spiritual quality. Everything's the same. The result is that young people are discouraged."
Well, Justice Kennedy, you should have thought of all this moral relativism stuff before you authored Lawrence. You are way late to the party. It's going to be tough, perhaps impossible, to stuff the genie back into the bottle and to get all the gremlins back into Pandora's Box and close the lid after all their toxic waste has been loosed on society.
In the meantime, your Honor, we'll try to clean up after you as best we can.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
October 30, 2012
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
Anthony Kennedy wrote the infamous Lawrence v. Texas decision that made laws against sodomy unenforceable in America. The Court issued this egregious display of arrogant and immoral judicial activism despite the fact that sodomy had been a criminal offense in all 50 States until 1961 and was still against the law in 24 States and the District of Columbia when the Lawrence decision was issued.
So in one fell swoop the Court deprived almost half the Union of the right to self-governance through their elected representatives, the essence of a republican form of government, and imposed its own twisted version of morality on the entire country. And here we thought imposing your values on others was supposed to be bad! Silly us for believing that swill.
It is not possible that there is a constitutional right to engage in sodomy. Sodomy was a criminal offense in all 13 States at the time the Bill of Rights was passed, so no luck there.
There cannot possibly be a 14th Amendment right to engage in sodomy, because it was a criminal offense in 32 of the 37 States when it was ratified. So no luck there either.
Scalia noted in his dissent that prosecutions under sodomy statutes were not as rare as one might think. There were 20 sodomy prosecutions in the colonial period, 203 recorded prosecutions from 1880-1995, and even 134 reported prosecutions in the half-century prior to Lawrence. His point was simply that designating homosexual conduct as immoral and contrary to public morals is a longstanding principle of American jurisprudence. It is rooted in our history.
No, you can read the Constitution from front to back, back to front, upside down, from right to left and hanging from a chandelier and you will find no mention whatsoever of any right to engage in sodomy. You won't find it because it's not there. It simply does not exist as a constitutional right, no matter what the fevered brains of six black-robed tyrants said in 2003.
In fact, the Supreme Court correctly ruled in 1999 that "a person has no constitutional right to engage in sexual intercourse, at least outside of marriage." It is perfectly permissible and constitutional to take all forms of sexual intercourse that occur outside the union of one man and one woman in marriage and make them contrary to public policy.
But carried along by the sirocco of secular fundamentalism, Anthony Kennedy, as Antonin Scalia observed, removed the last barrier to the legalization of "bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity." It is now just a matter of time before these evils are given legitimacy and consume what remains of America's soul.
Scalia pungently remarked that Lawrence v. Texas would be devastating to America's cultural fabric. Said Scalia, "This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation."
Scalia knew what this ruling meant. "Today's opinion is the product of a Court...that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda...[T]he Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed."
Now apparently even Justice Kennedy is becoming uneasy about the toxic fumes his own ruling has released into American society. He is now expressing open concern about the corrosive effect of "moral relativism."
Speaking at Heritage Foundation last week, Kennedy said, "Relativism leads to skepticism, skepticism leads to cynicism, and cynicism is corrosive to basic human values...If you have moral relativism as the public philosophy, you have a problem with telling the importance of our heritage. Teachers are reluctant to say someone was good, a hero. That an event doesn't have an ethical and spiritual quality. Everything's the same. The result is that young people are discouraged."
Well, Justice Kennedy, you should have thought of all this moral relativism stuff before you authored Lawrence. You are way late to the party. It's going to be tough, perhaps impossible, to stuff the genie back into the bottle and to get all the gremlins back into Pandora's Box and close the lid after all their toxic waste has been loosed on society.
In the meantime, your Honor, we'll try to clean up after you as best we can.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
