North Carolina continues to enforce Unconstitutional Sodomy Law.

[Ramo]

Precedent. That's just how it is.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ramo is partially right. To expand, because the judges said so . Due process is VERY flawed in that way that judges can decide which rights have been 'fundamental' and thus cannot be violated under the idea of 'Substantive Due Process'. Judges have decided you have a right of privacy in sex, but not in drugs. Some suspect that the court in using Substantive Due Process merely substitutes its morals when deciding what rights are fundamental... and they would be right .

[Ramo]

More specifically, the due process clause of the 14th Amendment was specifically designed to prevent things like a state trying to prohibit interracial marriage. It wasn't designed to prevent states from prohibiting a drug.

[Imran Siddiqui]

More specifically, the due process clause of the 14th Amendment was specifically designed to prevent things like a state trying to prohibit interracial marriage.

That's incorrect. The Equal Protection Clause was designed to prevent interracial marriage (at least where whites were allowed to marry other races than blacks) . I am of the opinion that the Due Process Clause of the 14th was designed simply to refer to those considered 'Procedural Due Process'. You get the right to a hearing or trial (basically extending the guarentee of a fair trial to the states).

[Ramo]

(at least where whites were allowed to marry other races than blacks)

Don't think there were too many options in the postbellum deep South.

[Thorn]

Sticking a needle in yourself is not victimless:

First, the drug which you got is supporting a criminal organization that can and probably does harm people (in the least law enforcement that fights them).

Second, the drug is dangerous to you (where as sex is not in itself, just with who) and has bad side effects including addiction.

[Ramo]

The reason why drugs support criminal organizations is that dealing drugs is illegal. Black markets tend to lead to violence.

[GePap]

There is no such thing as acting under the influence of intercourse (though people do stupid things seeking it).

[TCO]

Could some clarify how this tenuous "right" covers sex but not smoking?

[Voltaire]

Originally posted by TCO
Could some clarify how this tenuous "right" covers sex but not smoking?

Sex doesn't cause cancer. (at least that we know of).

[GePap]

Originally posted by TCO
Could some clarify how this tenuous "right" covers sex but not smoking?

Well, for one, sex is closer to hunger and thirst, and the need for oxygen than smoking is.

Second, no law limits your ability to smoke in your house (the crime here was public sex, the problem that they decided to prosecute differently de to the type of sex, not just that it was done in public), so why should there be ones that limits your ability to have sex in your house? Both have age of consent set, so there is no difference there.

[TCO]

So where in the constitution does it say that lack of danger makes it allowable?

[GePap]

The constitution does not have to say it: it does not say you have a right to smoke or not to smoke either.

Sex is a universal human constant, and as important to humanity as breathign. Smoking is a custom that serves no purpose. They are hardly at the same level.

Now, as for harm..the question is, what would allow you to reguate such actions? Well, if the consequence of your actions harms others..after all, the rationale against public sex is that it lowers public decency, undemrine social bonds and moral codes, blah, blah, blah..in essence, that it harms the community. Trying to make this case for consentual sex between to grown adults, no matter the sex, is much harder than makign the case for putting a flaming paper tube filled with tabacco in your mouth, speically given the consequences of the materials on the health of the body.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Voltaire
Sex doesn't cause cancer. (at least that we know of).

Au contraire mon ami! The risk of cervical cancer is positively linked with the number of partners a women has AND an early age of onset of sexual activity.

[Imran Siddiqui]

GePap, TCO's original argument (a better one) compared sex to other drugs. Heroin doesn't really harm anyone else directly, and you sure as **** can't use it in your own house .