Traditional American Virtues vs. Traditional American Values

[Upchurch]

The Supreme Court has struck down Texas's sodamy law (read more here (http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/06/26/scotus.sodomy/index.html)).

It is the traditional American value that sodomy (read: homosexuality) is morally wrong. However, value is based on Judeo-Christian teachings and one of the virtues of the American government that there is seperation of church and state. When it came to sodomy laws, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the First Amendment to "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". That is to say, they did not enforce the law whose only root was Judeo-Christian values and teachings.

I'll admit, this post is a bit of a troll. I agree with what the Supreme Court did 100% in both a legal, ethical and moral stand point, but I'm sure there are those of us who do not. I think this is an important enough issue that it ought to at least be presented for discussion on a religious/philosophical level.

An alternative topic is whether or not civil law should trump religious law. Obviously, I think it should.

[Brown]

Um, at this point, I don't really know if the Court reached the church-state question in that case. I also haven't read the opinion yet, so I can't say whether or not I agree with it 100 percent.

I think this is a good topic and worthy of discussion, but I am wary about suggesting that the Supreme Court said something that it really did not say.

[whitefork]

Kennedy's argument appears to be from due process and right to privacy, not whether religious or civil law should prevail.

Scalia's comments are typical, though:
"The court has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda," Scalia wrote for the three, according to the AP. 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."

That reasoning would appear to allow states to prohibit sex before marriage, interracial marriage, the use of viagra, various sex toys, and other private acts.

"Homosexual Agenda" indeed. It's all about keeping behavior criminal so that otherwise innocent people can be persecuted, or arrested for other activities that aren't illegal.

Mopery laws.

[Upchurch]

I didn't mean to say that the Supreme Court was specifically envoking Seperation of Church and State, I was just saying (at least from my point of view) that this was the net effect of the decision. Unless I'm way off base as to the reasoning behind the sodomy law, which I may very well be.

[whitefork]

It's a great side effect anyhow. Anything that causes Scalia and Thomas to start foaming at the mouth is likely to make me happy.

Thanks for posting that link Upchurch. It makes my heart soar like a hawk.

Being Texas, it might not make much of a difference though.

[ceo_esq]

Originally posted by Upchurch
An alternative topic is whether or not civil law should trump religious law. Obviously, I think it should.
By "trump", do you mean the one system should consciously defer to the other, or simply that an individual ought always to heed the one rather than the other in the event that a civil law conflicts with a religious law?

Should an unjust civil law trump a just religious law? Is it a question of the degree of injustice?

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by ceo_esq

By "trump", do you mean the one system should consciously defer to the other, or simply that an individual ought always to heed the one rather than the other in the event that a civil law conflicts with a religious law?To clarify, when I spoke above, I meant the latter. If civil law says one thing and religious law says another, the civil law is the one that should ultimately be maintained. Consider the issue presented in this thread (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22183).
Should an unjust civil law trump a just religious law? Is it a question of the degree of injustice? hm.. Hadn't thought about it in those terms before but it would seem that justice is relative. According to religious law, sodomy is unjust. According to civil law, sodomy is just (now). So, from a religious point of view, the civil law is unjust and the religious law is just. However, from the civil point of view, the religious law is unjust and the civil law is just.

While there might be a question of the degree of injustice, I think we first have to get over the hurdle that there may not be such an absolute as justice in the first place.

[Brown]

Some folk seem to be quoting Justice Scalia out of context. Here is what he said: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.Although the Court did not address church-state separation, it did note:It must be acknowledged, of course, that the Court in Bowers was making the broader point that for centuries there have been powerful voices to condemn homosexual conduct as immoral. The condemnation has been shaped by religious beliefs, conceptions of right and acceptable behavior, and respect for the traditional family. For many persons these are not trivial concerns but profound and deep convictions accepted as ethical and moral principles to which they aspire and which thus determine the course of their lives. These considerations do not answer the question before us, however. The issue is whether the majority may use the power of the State to enforce these views on the whole society through operation of the criminal law. “Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.” Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 850 (1992).

[whitefork]

Brown, do a global replace of "homosexuals" in the Scalia quote with "lepers" "asthmatics" "nosepickers" or "people who practice blood transfusion" and see if it still holds up.

Are the homosexuals of Texas imposing anything on their fellow citizens? They're merely asking to be left in peace.

[DialecticMaterialist]

About damn time..

You'd think they would have settled an issue like this before the 21st century. Just goes to show that in some ways we excelled in manners furturists never imagined and in some ways we are still very primitive.

[Yahzi]

Brown
Thank you for that quote in context.

I agree with Kullvero that it still doesn't hold up, but it's not quite the slavering idiocy that was first implied.

It's a very sophisticated form of slavering idiocy.


Kullevero
I imagine it would still hold up for Scalia. He probably doesn't see anything wrong with the State making asthma illegal.

[Dancing David]

This is such a goofy issue,
hey why do we have a country in the first place, the mythology, so we can get away and be our selves in peace.
There is a long history on the american frontier of bachelors living with each other and spinsters too. Thier neighbors didn't care what tthey did with each other ot thier sheep.

Then a hundred years later the church police come along and say , it's not that you can't do it on the stree, it's that you can't do it anywhere.

INTRUSIVE, how the heck do you enforce sodomy laws in the first place.

'I thought I was using the legal orifice officer... honest."

[Fade]

INTRUSIVE, how the heck do you enforce sodomy laws in the first place.

They are often used by cops to strongarm people they don't like, or charge a person with something when they can't figure out any other way to charge them.

Scalia mistakenly believes that majority should mean something when it comes to civil liberties. This country was founded on the principle that you have unalienable rights that have nothing to do with the whim of the teeming masses.

[whitefork]

Originally posted by Fade


They are often used by cops to strongarm people they don't like, or charge a person with something when they can't figure out any other way to charge them.

mopery
Slang: a trivial, imaginary violation of law (also seen defined as: act of moping; vagrancy, dawdling); "The War must've been lean times for crowd control, murder and mopery was the best you could do" 570; "Magda was picked up on first-degree mopery" 742; "Edelman [...] accused last year of an 11569 (Attempted Mopery with a Subversive Instrument)" 755;
from http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/alpha/m.html

[pgwenthold]

Originally posted by Kullervo



from http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/alpha/m.html

In "Revenge of the Nerds" they said that 'mopery' was exposing yourself to a blind person.

[justsaygnosis]

If you look to the 'related' box you can link to the state by state look at sodomy laws.
It's intiguing that those states have little diversity in their gene pool.

[whitefork]

Originally posted by pgwenthold


In "Revenge of the Nerds" they said that 'mopery' was exposing yourself to a blind person. That was lifted from William Burroughs, and who knows if it's original with him.