Supremes Uphold Right to Gay Sex!

[Boris Godunov]

DD: Scarecrow's threadjack.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I wish more judges wrote like him. He's my favorite justice.

He is entertaining, but sometimes he takes a bit away from the legal arguments he makes.

PS How did we get to abortion from sodomy?

Uhhh, somebody got the wrong hole?

Same general thang - the right of the state to legislate personal matters based on a religiously defined moral standard, as opposed to demonstration of a compelling state interest.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Same general thang

How so? Even if we conceede that abortion is only a moral issue (which I don't), there are issues involved that trump the totally manufactured right to privacy as the Court themselves admitted when they set moving target of a viability standard.

That's all beside the point for me anyway since I believe that the Court needlessly inflamed this whole debate by injecting itself into it given the trends among the states before they heard Roe.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Balancing of rights is common, as is the compelling state interest standard.

What Blackmun did in Roe v. Wade was create a rationale that allowed the state to assert a compelling interest on behalf of something still inside the woman's body that wasn't a human being (child) as defined by law. Otherwise, unless you create that compelling state interest, you'd have abortion legal anytime up until birth.

Viability was a way to rationalize the state's protective interest in the potential child to balance it against the sole interest of the woman. I just don't think viability goes quite far enough, but the state has a hell of a time going back to a microscopic pair of cells in a fallopian tube and asserting a compelling interest there.

[Imran Siddiqui]

It was a big one.

So? As I said it was one case. It doesn't matter if they are big or small, one case should not (even if it unfortunetly does, in the eyes of laymen) define a justice.

Uhhh, somebody got the wrong hole?

That's all beside the point for me anyway since I believe that the Court needlessly inflamed this whole debate by injecting itself into it given the trends among the states before they heard Roe.

I agree, but you can't put the genie back into the bottle. It's hear to stay, better to just deal with it instead of making an argument, while more correct IMO, will never, ever happen.

[Sava]

one case should not (even if it unfortunetly does, in the eyes of laymen) define a justice.

corrupt is corrupt... is someone not a murderer if they only commit one murder?

Antonin Scalia has two sons who are working as lawyers: one is a partner of Ted Olson, who represented Bush in his federal appeals and argued the case before the Supreme Court (and Scalia, father of his partner), and the other who works for the law firm that was representing Bush's interests in the Florida state courts. These were the only two law firms representing Bush in the post-campaign strategies, and Scalia had a son working for each firm -- immediate family members representing a clear conflict of interest.

If I were a betting man, I bet you also like Mr Clarence Thomas. During the Election, Clarence Thomas' wife Virginia was working for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative "think tank" which was handling screening of applicants for jobs in a potential Bush administration.

I'm sure there are more blatant ethics violations in the SCOTUS. It's a shame.

[darkgrendel]

Rockin'. =D

You know how we should celebrate...?

[Sava]

Evidence of such corruption can be further verified in the payback: within the first six months of his presidency Dubya appointed Eugene Scalia (son of Antonin Scalia) to be the Labor Department's top lawyer, and Janet Rehnquist, daughter of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, as inspector general at the Health and Human Services Department. Does anyone really think these appointments would have been made if their last name's were Smith and Jones instead of Scalia and Rehnquist?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Don't bet . I dislike Thomas. I dislike any justice that backs his decision by 'natural law'.

Btw, if you screened for every relation of the Supreme Court who was working for either campaign in 2000, you MAY have one left... same for the Florida Supreme Court. Just because you have a relation that is a partner at a law firm that argues in front of the Supreme Court doesn't mean you have to recuse yourself. As long as your relation does argue himself, it's ok.

And of course murder is the same as deciding cases . Sava (the master of the idiot analogy) strikes again.

[Sava]

And of course murder is the same as deciding cases

You misunderstood the analogy. Scalia is corrupt. Even if only one decision was swayed by corruption, he's still corrupt and should be gone.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

It was "democratic" practive to allow courts to enforce covenants on the sale of real property to prevent selling to non-whites and Jews. It was "democratic" practice to forbid doctors from prescribing birth control to unmarried women at all, and to married women without the husband's permission. It was "democratic" practice to keep "******s" on the back of the bus, out of our white children's schools, and in their own section in restaurants, public parks, restrooms, community pools and the like.

"Democracy" under the US Constitution does not give a majority of the electorate an unconditional fiat to impose it's world view on the entire populace in the absence of a legitimate state interest.

Christian morality does not create a legitimate state interest under the restrictions of the Establishment Clause. So if you can tell me, outside a Christian or religiously based "moral" context, why the state has a legitmate interest in what goes up the rectum of a consenting adult in that adult's own home or other location where privacy is reasonably expected, then let's have it.

Well said, MTG -- as usual.

It looks like the United States might catch up with the rest of the Western world in terms of human rights and civil rights.

[Imran Siddiqui]

To you everyone would be corrupt .

Wow... the President appointed people because of their fathers. OMG, stop the presses . Like that never happens! I get the feeling you have a lot to learn about politics in general. Btw, Eugene and Janet were very well accomplished.

And failure to recuse yourself for one case isn't cause enough for impeachment.

Btw, you should love it then when Rehnquist steps down and Scalia becomes Chief Justice. I'd love to be a fly on the wall when you get that news .

[Sava]

To you everyone would be corrupt .

Most in Washington... yes...

Wow... the President appointed people because of their fathers. OMG, stop the presses . Like that never happens! I get the feeling you have a lot to learn about politics in general. Btw, Eugene and Janet were very well accomplished.

Was the Holocaust okay because people die all the time? **** Eugene and Janet... silver spoon nepotism mother****ers

And failure to recuse yourself for one case isn't cause enough for impeachment.

murdering one person shouldn't be cause enough to go to jail, right?

Btw, you should love it then when Rehnquist steps down and Scalia becomes Chief Justice. I'd love to be a fly on the wall when you get that news

it won't be as bad as when Bush was APPOINTED president.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Sava
corrupt is corrupt... is someone not a murderer if they only commit one murder?

Antonin Scalia has two sons who are working as lawyers: one is a partner of Ted Olson, who represented Bush in his federal appeals and argued the case before the Supreme Court (and Scalia, father of his partner), and the other who works for the law firm that was representing Bush's interests in the Florida state courts. These were the only two law firms representing Bush in the post-campaign strategies, and Scalia had a son working for each firm -- immediate family members representing a clear conflict of interest.

If I were a betting man, I bet you also like Mr Clarence Thomas. During the Election, Clarence Thomas' wife Virginia was working for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative "think tank" which was handling screening of applicants for jobs in a potential Bush administration.

I'm sure there are more blatant ethics violations in the SCOTUS. It's a shame.

And there's no violation of law in any of those cases. Nor is there evidence of any violation of rules of professional conduct for members of the bar. Perhaps you have a problem with Hillary's work for Mudge. Rose? There were the biggest firm in Arkansas for government representation work when Bill was gov.

Or what was Cuomo's son's name again - the one that magically fast tracked to partner in a New York firm that did more than half it's business in goverment lobbying and representation in NY?

Lawyers move around, and have very clearly prescribed rules wrt what is and is not a conflict of interest in a particular matter.

[Sava]

The CLintons were corrupt too, how does this change things?