- George Jonas: Keep your bedroom out of the Constitution
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Last Saturday, U.S. President Barack Obama addressed the Human Rights Campaign. In a dinner speech he told the world’s largest gay activist group that he was going to change not only America’s laws but people’s hearts and minds.
“What do you think?” a friend wanted to know. I replied that it depended on the sequence. Starting with people’s hearts and minds was fine; starting with their laws, not so much.
As an old-fashioned liberal, I welcomed the 2003 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Lawrence vs. Texas. The much-discussed judgment struck down the state’s anti-sodomy laws, 6-3. I liked the result, but not that it was reached in a constitutional forum.
Nor did I like the majority’s reasoning. I thought Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote a dissent, had both logic and history on his side. Anal retentive (as it were) as the Texas statute may have been, it didn’t seem to me unconstitutional. Much as I believe consenting adults ought to be free to employ their orifices for any purpose they like, I’m no more persuaded than Justice Scalia that the framers of the Constitution meant to elevate anal sex into an entitlement.
South Africa debates same-sex marriage
Gay marriage has been legal for three years, but some groups want to overturn ruling.
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