In its 2003 Lawrence decision, the Supreme Court overturned Texas\u2019s ban on sodomy. Critics, I among them, warned that this precedent would open the floodgates to gay marriage, polygamy, incest, and a whole host of horribles. Justice Antonin Scalia issued a blistering dissent, charging that Lawrence “effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defenders of the opinion scoffed at the warning and accused critics of hysteria and homophobia. Then Senator Rick Santorum, a critic of the ruling, was subjected to continuing and merciless vilification.<\/p>\n
Well, sadly, eight years later, all I can say is \u201cwe told you so.\u201d<\/p>\n
The occasion for revisiting Lawrence is the revolting case of Columbia University Professor David Epstein. Epstein is charged with third-degree incest for having a sexual relationship with his daughter. What made this case stand out, apart from Epstein\u2019s Ivy League credentials, was that his daughter was 24-years-old and, by all accounts, a consensual partner to this repugnant union.<\/p>\n
This fact prompted William Saletan of Slate to ask a question many people desperately wanted to avoid: \u201cIf homosexuality is okay, why is incest wrong?\u201d Saletan isn\u2019t trying to justify incest-he\u2019s merely trying to get people to articulate a reason why, in light of Lawrence and similar arguments, society should distinguish between the two.<\/p>\n
What Justice Kennedy wrote about the relationship in Lawrence – it involved \u201ctwo adults who, with full and mutual consent, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle\u201d – would be just as true here if you substituted \u201cincestuous\u201d for \u201chomosexual.\u201d<\/p>\n
Epstein\u2019s lawyer, Matthew Galluzzo, said as much in a television interview: \u201cIt\u2019s OK for homosexuals to do whatever they want in their own home … How is this so different? We have to figure out why some behavior is tolerated and some is not.\u201d<\/p>\n
While defenders of Lawrence purport to be appalled by such arguments, this is exactly what Justice Scalia predicted in his dissent. According to Justice Kennedy in Lawrence, the fact that the majority \u201chas traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral\u201d isn\u2019t sufficient justification for outlawing the practice. This kind of disapproval doesn\u2019t justify an \u201cintrusion into the personal and private life of the individual.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, it logically follows that this reasoning could just as well be applied to \u201cbigamy\u201d or \u201cadult incest\u201d or \u201cpolygamy\u201d or \u201cpolyamory.\u201d If all that matters is age and \u201cmutual consent\u201d the Lawrence decision is limited only by the perversity of the human imagination.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, under Lawrence, what ethicist Leon Kass calls the \u201cwisdom of repugnance\u201d is an insufficient basis to outlaw something.<\/p>\n
If Epstein raises the Lawrence decision in pre-trial motions or on appeal, judges will be caught in a dilemma: apply Lawrence and sanction perversity or tie themselves into knots trying to distinguish what, under Lawrence, is indistinguishable.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a dilemma of the Supreme Court\u2019s making: It usurped the prerogative of the people and their elected representatives and created a hole so big that any kind of perversity could drive through.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2011 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint with Chuck Colson” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In its 2003 Lawrence decision, the Supreme Court overturned Texas\u2019s ban on sodomy. Critics, I among them, warned that this precedent would open the floodgates to gay marriage, polygamy, incest, and a whole host of horribles. Justice Antonin Scalia issued a blistering dissent, charging that Lawrence “effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation.\u201d Defenders […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[594,592,586,3477,1328,3476],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6018"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}