Chuck Colson
Townhall
June 30, 2003


The Supreme Court has passed another law, this one supplanting the
law passed by the people of the state of Texas in its democratic
process. But you say the Court doesn't pass laws. Well, as Justice
Scalia in his angry dissent said, the Court is supposed to be a
court, but it has become a super-legislature overriding the
decisions of the people. What a travesty.

By a 6-3 vote, the unelected nine based their decision to make
sodomy constitutionally protected on the so-called "right to
privacy."

Justice Kennedy, who wrote for the majority, said that the issue was
"two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other,
engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle." To
deny that, he said, would reflect animus. And, he added, times and
circumstances do change. Maybe, but the Constitution doesn't.
And what about the 1986 decision that Kennedy and this majority
overthrew? In abortion cases, they constantly lectured us, they
can't change the law that people have come to rely on.

Well, most Americans seem to be applauding the decision, and I guess
there's a libertarian streak in all of us. We don't like the
government in our bedrooms.

But if laws are unreasonable, we ought to change the law through our
legislatures, not the courts. As George Will wrote,
"'Unconstitutional' is not a synonym for 'unjust' or 'unwise.' . . .
Legislators can adjust laws to their communities' changing moral
sensibilities without creating, as courts do, principles, such as
the broadly sweeping privacy right, that sweep away more than
communities intend to discard."

Precisely. If the right to privacy protects adults engaged in
private, consensual sex, how are we going to outlaw polygamy? The
polygamist and all of his wives practice private, consensual sex.
How are we going to maintain laws against incest? It's private,
consensual sexual behavior in the security of one's own bedroom. Why
stop a forty-year-old man having sex with his consenting
nineteen-year-old daughteror son? And why stop siblings as long as
there's consent?

And what about pedophilia that's "consensual," or "intergenerational
intimacy," as the North American Man-Boy Love Association calls it?
One even has to raise the question of bestiality. Peter Singer, the
eminent bioethicist at Princeton, argues that animals can consent
since consent needn't be verbal.

Sen. Rick Santorum was vilified for raising these questions. So was
Bill Pryor, the Alabama attorney general nominated for the Circuit
Court. Critics say they're making homosexuality and bestiality or
incest morally equivalent. Nonsense. They're simply pointing out
that that's what the court is doingmaking it inevitable, in fact.
The gay lobby immediately hailed the decision as the prelude to gay
marriage. Of course! As Justice Scalia said in his dissent, this
decision "effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation."
Well, will the media apologize to Santorum? They ought to. Will they
lobby now to reinstate the Catholic priests who are pedophiles?
After all, much of that was "consensual." Hardly.

What we can hope and pray for is nothing less than a miraclethat
two sensible judges will be appointed to join Scalia, Thomas, and
Rehnquist. Please, Lord, may it happen.