Supreme Stupidity

 David Alan Black

Today, states rights were brutally assaulted by the nation’s highest court. Up until the 1960s, every state in the nation prohibited sodomy. But in a landmark decision that activists say could pave the way toward full gay rights in America, the U. S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas law banning gay sex, reversing a decision the court made in a Georgia case 17 years ago.

Gay rights activists nationwide hailed the 6-3 decision that ruled the Texas sodomy law an unconstitutional violation of privacy. “This is a giant leap for gay and lesbian civil rights,” said Hector Vargas, southern regional director for Lambda Legal, which took the Texas case to the court. “This is clearly the most important decision that has come down for the gay community. It marks the end of an era.”

The justices’ ruling also invalidated gay sodomy laws in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri and statutes in nine other states that outlaw sodomy for heterosexuals and homosexuals. “When homosexual conduct is made criminal by the law of the state, that declaration in and of itself is an invitation to subject homosexual persons to discrimination both in the public and in the private spheres,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter, and Stephen Breyer agreed with Kennedy fully. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor agreed with the outcome of the case but not all of Kennedy’s opinion.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented. “The court has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda,” Scalia wrote in 21-page dissent three pages longer than the majority opinion. He added, “The court has taken sides in the culture war. Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools or as boarders in their home.”

Among the groups backing the court are the Cato Institute, the Institute for Justice, the American Bar Association, the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the National Organization for Women Legal Defense and Education Fund. The court’s decision also had the backing of several Republican groups, including the Log Cabin Republicans and the Republican Unity Coalition.

Backing Texas were the state attorneys general of Alabama, South Carolina, and Utah, the American Center for Law and Justice, the American Family Association, the Center for Arizona Policy, the Center for Law and Justice International, the Center for the Original Intent of the Constitution, Concerned Women for America, the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, the Liberty Counsel, the Pro Family Law Center, the Texas Eagle Forum, the Christian Medical and Dental Association, the Catholic Medical Association, and United Families International.

These groups had asked a very important question: “Where in the U.S. Constitution is there a right to engage in sodomy?” They complained that, once again, extreme judicial activism is determining state policy regarding marriage, the family, and sexual conduct outside of marriage. Clearly the court’s decision is a politically motivated attempt to change the way Americans think about traditional sex-related acts.

Thankfully, some are speaking out. “So is the next stage of all of this going to be that a man can commit bestiality as long as it’s in the privacy of his own home?” asked the Rev. James Merritt, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Snellville and Cross Pointe and a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. “Where do we stop now? We’re beginning now down a slippery slope to which there is no end.”

It is perhaps an extreme irony that today also marks the death of Senator Strom Thurmond. The Southern Manifesto that he composed in 1956 is one of the clearest defenses of states rights ever written. In it Thurmond wrote:

The Founding Fathers gave us a Constitution of checks and balances because they realized the inescapable lesson of history that no man or group of men can be safely entrusted with unlimited power. They framed this Constitution with its provisions for change by amendment in order to secure the fundamentals of government against the dangers of temporary popular passion or the personal predilections of public officeholders.

We regard the decisions of the Supreme Court in the school cases as a clear abuse of judicial power. It climaxes a trend in the Federal Judiciary undertaking to legislate, in derogation of the authority of Congress, and to encroach upon the reserved rights of the States and the people.

Sadly for our nation, while Thurmond is being eulogized today even by some of his erstwhile opponents in Congress, his message continues to fall on deaf ears. What is tragic about today’s ruling is the way in which it usurps the legitimate powers of the states and turns the Supreme Court into a protector of an evil social philosophy instead of being a defender of our God-given rights. As Thurmond might have said had he lived to see this day, this question is one that should be decided by the states, not by the Congress or the United States Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, whether the issue is gay marriage, the death penalty, abortion, quotas, school prayer, or vouchers, we Americans sit around meekly waiting for nine human beings to tell us how we may govern ourselves. If this isn’t supreme stupidity, I don’t know what is.

June 27, 2003

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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