June 27, 2003
The Supreme Court and Sean Hannity
The other day I was driving to get lunch and as usual I tuned into Hannity on the radio. Now I enjoy listening to Sean, but there are many times I disagree with him. This time was no exception.
Sean was discussing the Supreme Courts striking down sodomy laws and queried his audience with this question (paraphrase based on memory):
Isn't this just another example, and my libertarian listeners can correct me here if they think I'm wrong, but isn't this case just another example of the government, in this case the Supreme Court, butting into our private lives?
As best as I can remember that was the gist of his question (my memory maybe off, but I don't have access to a transcript). My answer to this is an emphatic, "No!" It is just the opposite. This decision basically says, "Government, get the Hell out of the bedroom." Of course there are exceptions for such things as underage minors, coercion, and other such things. So basically it is saying, the government doesn't have a right to be worried who you are having sex with (for the most part).
How you can call this an additional intrusion is beyond me. Unfortunately I got back into the parking lot at work before I could here if anybody corrected him.
Posted by Steve at June 27, 2003 09:55 AMWhat the sodomy decision is, is the Supreme Court acting anti-democratically without a constitutional basis.
Posted by: Robin Roberts on June 27, 2003 02:26 PMI don't doubt that Robin. It is the Supreme Court over-riding what every laws individual states have set up. If you are in favor of state's rights I can see how you'd oppose this (and could be quite in favor of having no such laws). But to say it is the Federal government or even any other government forcing itself into the private affairs of individuals is hard for me to see.
Posted by: Steve on June 27, 2003 03:02 PMYou are partially right, Steve, but casting this as "state's rights" isn't entirely correct. In this case, the democratic legislature of the Federal government is not clashing with states, the federal judiciary is. The Federal judiciary is usurping the power of the people to control their government through democratic process.
So it is more than federal vs. states' rights ( a formula that has an obvious taint ) but its democratic process vs the judiciary. The federal courts are telling the entire nation that it can't be allowed to govern itself in this area. Its undemocratic.
Posted by: Robin Roberts on June 27, 2003 07:25 PMThe Texas law criminalized activity between two concenting adults of the same sex, but not the exact same activity between two consenting adults of the opposite sex. I can see why this was deemed to violate the Equal Protection Clause.
I'm happy with the result of their decision, but I think that it was an unnecessary decision -- several state legislatures have removed their anti-sodomy laws in just the last few years. It was a trend that seemed to be continuing, so the laws would probably have been off the books eventually anyway.
Posted by: DaveL on June 28, 2003 04:05 PMDave, the majority decision didn't just use the Equal Protection argument but went far beyond that.
Posted by: Robin Roberts on June 29, 2003 05:58 PM
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