John Roberts and Gays
I was listening to Rush Limbaugh today during lunch, and it appears that John Roberts, President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, helped overturn a law in California that would have prevented the state or local governments there from ever passing employment, housing and other non-discrimination protection laws for gay people. Basically, the law said that people should be allowed to discriminate against gays. John Roberts fought against this law pro bono. That is news I am happy to hear, and I applaud him.Rush then went on to say that conservatives don't dislike gays, and they think what people do in their own homes was just fine. I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm not sure I believe it.
Rush is squarely against the Lawrence v. Texas case that overturned a law that made it illegal for gay people to have sex, even in their own homes. He even repeated how he thought Roberts' help in Colorado led to this decision and how bad that was.
So, if he thinks gays should be able to do what they want in their own homes, why does he think the Lawrence ruling was incorrect? Yes, I know people are going to bring it back to "judicial activism," but if their is a law on the books that goes squarely against your general beliefs (that people should be able to do as they please in their private lives), why not fight to overturn that law?
If the state and conservatives would have looked at the law and said, you know what, this law is unfair, and it goes against our principles, so let's overturn it, we wouldn't have to have had the courts tell them the law was unconstitutional in the first place. If Rush is being true when he says that private lives are private lives, he should have been on the forefront talking about how bad the original law in Lawrence really was, not blabbing about how judicial activists are taking over our courts and pretending that is why he was against the Lawrence decision.
Like I said, nice sentiment, but it's all just lipservice to me.
posted by Brady @ 11:12 AM
3 Comments:
Hey Stojef- good points. You know, I was thinking about this all night. Since conservatives are usually upset that most supreme court judges move to the middle or to the left, even the ones they thought were conservative, doesn't that say something?
Maybe conservatives are just wrong. I mean, the judges at the very top of the legal field more often than not move away from what they feel is strict conservatism. It sounds to me like strict conservatism just isn't right.
Also, I realize, of course, that the Constitution does not say anything about gay sex. Of course it doesn't. It doesn't say anything about most of the things in our society. It is supposed to be a guideline, not an explicit handbook that spells out every single scenario in the world. If we had that, we wouldn't need judges
Stojef-
Very good points, especially the last paragraph. And, I have noticed the "activist judge" trend. Basically, if you disagree, you are activist. It is funny how often they call their own party members activists too.
I truly love the text..
I surely agree with stojef2005:
"Homosexuals have the same Constitutional rights as everyone else" and "There is no Constitutional right to homosexuality".
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