The Right to Anything

Scott Hardie | April 23, 2003
Reuters: In an interview with the Associated Press published on Monday, Senator Rick Santorum, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, discussed a Texas sodomy law now being challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court. "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) 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," Santorum was quoted as saying. "You have the right to anything."

Putting the controversy over this comparison aside, I have a question. As long as the above acts are all committed by knowing and consenting adults, what right does the government have to make them illegal? Isn't the right of people to do in private what turns them on more important than societal disapproval? What's worse, the people who know a gay couple being a little uncomfortable, or two gay adults in love not being able to do what makes them so happy?

(I'm done with my long liberal slant for the day. Conservative authors, the Comedy is yours.)

Anna Gregoline | April 23, 2003
Yeah, I find that bizarre as well. It's not hurting anyone. Unless that's your pleasure. =)
And even then, like Scott said...consenting adults. Republicans mistify me sometimes.

Anna Gregoline | April 23, 2003
Ok, pretty much all the time.

Jackie Mason | April 23, 2003
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Erik Bates | April 23, 2003
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Scott Hardie | April 23, 2003
Sure, our organs aren't designed for sodomy. But they're not designed for oral sex or manual sex either, and nobody seems to object to those. Even most of those few people who do object to them don't try to outlaw them for the rest of us.

Where does the belief originate that homosexuality, adultery, and polygamy are wrong? The Bible? How is it that Christians will lie, steal, covet other peoples' property, take the lord's name in vain, get drunk, worship false idols, have sex outside of marriage, dishonor their parents, and work on Sunday, but then frown on homosexuality and polygamy because "God doesn't approve of that"? While I will give credit to those who admit that they truly frown on it because they don't approve, not God, I still have to wonder: Do you people really think homosexuality is wrong, or do you simply dislike it? And what kind of society do we have if we outlaw a private behavior just because we dislike it?

Lori Lancaster | April 23, 2003
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Anna Gregoline | April 24, 2003
Erik said:Yeah, it's done between consenting adults. So what? Are you saying that adultery, bigamy and polygamy should be okay because it's between consenting adults? Seems to me that if we allow all of those acts, we should just go ahead and throw morals out the window and say "screw it."
None of those thingsbeyond the confines of the law are wrong. You're talking about morals as opposed to law. If marriage and divorce weren't set up as they were, we wouldn't need laws against bigamy and whatnot.You also contradict yourself by stating that you have a problem with the "health" aspects of gay sex (Specifically anal sex) and then later refer to morals again. Which is it? Anal sex isn't morally wrong, even if it is not the best thing for your body.

Anna Gregoline | April 24, 2003
I'm not trying to be snarky or "get personal," I'd really like to hear more on the matter.

Scott Hardie | April 24, 2003
And I'd like to re-emphasize politeness. I don't censor here, but I do ask that everyone stay respectful of everyone else's opinions. So far I don't think anyone has gotten mean, but I wanted to say something before this topic reached that point. Erik, I'm glad that you said what you said, and I too would like to hear more.

Erik Bates | April 27, 2003
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Erik Bates | April 27, 2003
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Jackie Mason | April 28, 2003
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Jackie Mason | April 28, 2003
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Jackie Mason | April 28, 2003
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Erik Bates | April 28, 2003
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Jackie Mason | April 28, 2003
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Scott Hardie | April 28, 2003
This is not the second time Jackie has made fun of Texas. :-)

I'm also curious, Erik: By your definition, is a woman performing fellatio sex, but a man performing cunnilingus not sex? Most people I've asked define sex the same way you do, so don't bother, I'm just giving you shit about it. :-) Sex columnist Dan Savage says, "If it involves genitals, it's sex," and that definition is good enough for me.

So the state wants to protect the marriage contract for creating offspring and keeping a functional family. That's legit the way it's stated, but the problem is that not everybody looks at it that way. Some people define marriage as "the union of multiple people" instead of "the union of one man and one woman." (I'm not going to include the people who want to marry horses and other animals. Besides my not wanting to dignify those people, we're talking about consenting partners in this discussion.) The same goes for "family" - there are more definitions in this day and age than the old-fashioned nuclear family. Ask a schoolteacher. And beyond human terms, "creating offspring" is a biological concept. Nature certainly doesn't require a father and mother to be married to each other.

I bet I know what you're thinking: Well, if there has to be some legal definition of marriage (so as to avoid the aforementioned bovine nuptials), why not define it the way the majority defines it? Because the purpose of the law is to protect the rights of the minority from the will of the majority. If homosexuality, polygamy, and consenting adultery do not harm the majority, then those in the minority should have the right to engage in those acts, and the law should protect that right. This is especially true if, as I contend, the majority only wants to make those acts illegal because it dislikes them. I don't buy for a second the belief that those acts threaten the institution of marriage: Come on, do the hundreds of millions of married men and women in this country really think that their marriage vows are suddenly meaningless if two men in love can marry each other, or two women? If it's the concept of marriage that is in trouble, not individual marriages, then how do you have any more right to declare what the concept is than someone else does? Simply because more people agree with you than disagree? Then we're right back to the will of the majority, which is not a valid grounds for law.

Anna Gregoline | April 30, 2003
"Hehe, you have a point, lesbian sex technically isn't really sex."
I think Jackie had some very well-thought out comments, until this sentence was written. I'm trying not to be offended, but it feels wrong to so easily negate sex between two women. There are many, many lesbians in this world, and they enjoy the sex that they do in fact have. (Keep in mind too, that by negating any sexual acts between two women, you are then banishing any loving sexual act as well, making their union seem that much less valid)
I've read that cervical cancer isn't all that likely from protected sex (Here's a link of some risk factors),
How would we decide law then, if the will of the majority wasn't it? I get what you're saying, Scott, and I think I agree with you, but I'm wondering how things would be decided.

Scott Hardie | April 30, 2003
I'm not going to debate the process of legislation because even I'm not that pompous :-), but I'll reiterate what I said before. The fundamental purpose of law is to protect rights, even unpopular rights. Will there ever be a constitutional amendment that bans the burning of the U.S. flag? No, there won't, no matter how many people want such an amendment, because every citizen has the inalienable right to free speech in this country, and burning the flag is a form of free speech. (When it is used in other ways, such as to help start a fire that burns down a house, that's something else.) So, if homosexual men have a right to engage in sodomy, then the law should be protecting that right from the people who want to take it away from them. How the religious right came to believe that they're the oppressed in this situation instead of the oppressors, I don't know.

Jackie Mason | April 30, 2003
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Scott Hardie | April 30, 2003
I hate to be the asshole who brings out the dictionary, but since we are discussing the actual definition of the word: My Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines sex as sexual intercourse. It gives two definitions for sexual intercourse: 1) heterosexual intercourse involving penetration of the vagina by the penis, 2) intercourse involving genital contact between individuals other than penetration of the vagina by the penis. Furthermore, the third and only sex-related definition of the word "intercourse" is: physical sexual contact between individuals that involves the genitalia of at least one person. Sounds to me like lesbians qualify for the technical definition of sex.

Jackie Mason | May 1, 2003
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Anna Gregoline | May 1, 2003
Heh, I was reading this thread and hopped to Webster's before I read Scott's entry. He took care of it. =)

Scott Hardie | June 26, 2003
So now that the decision is out and it's 6-3 in favor of repealing the sodomy law, any comments? Or did we talk this one to death already?

Erik Bates | June 27, 2003
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Anna Gregoline | June 28, 2003
I'm impressed with the decision, it's a great step forward. I don't understand where the government gets off legislating what two consenusal adults do in their own bedroom anyway?

Jackie Mason | June 30, 2003
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Dave Stoppenhagen | July 1, 2003
People are afraid that this endangers heterosexual marriages, that the definition of marriage means "The union between a man and a woman". This is the definition that some senators are trying to get set in stone, to block same sex marriages. CNN is constantly talking about this and some of our lawmakers believe that by saying same sex marriages are "ok", it sends the wrong signal to younger generation about being gay. I'm glad the Supreme Court made the decision that they did.