Thursday, June 26, 2003

Some quotes that came out of today's major Supreme Court decision....

The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. -- Justice Anthony Kennedy writing for the majority.

What Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional democractic action, and its hand should not be stayed through the invention of a brand-new 'constitutional right' by a court that is impatient of democratic change. -- Justice Antonin Scalia (hisssssssss) writing for the dissent.

We won big. It's a historic day for gay Americans and for all Americans who believe in basic liberty because what the court said is that all of us as adults have the liberty to choose how we're going to express our love for one another in the privacy of our own bedrooms. The court is just catching up with American society. -- Ruth Barlow, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.

The court has said today that morality -- matters of right and wrong behavior -- do not matter in the law. That is an undermining of our concept of justice in this country. (Oh don't get me started on this one people!) -- The Rev. Rob Shenck, National Clergy Council

This means that for morality to be used as a basis to discriminate against a group that the legislature disfavors for some reason, there needs to be more than invoking the name of morality. You have to show some legitimate purpose, some societal harm that is implicated by the conduct that the state is seeking to outlaw. -- Legal analyst Kendall Coffey

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