Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (781)	4/28/2003 11:04:07 AM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 20773

Santorum's remarks were the sort of remarks in which every person could find what they wanted to find. If you wanted to be offended by them, you could easily be. But you would, IMO, have to read things into them that he didn't say. In fact, what he said was quite basic, and legally reasonable. That is to say, a US Supreme Court decision could quite easily imply all the things he suggested it could imply. IMO, the violent reaction against the remarks came in part precisely because they came so close to an unpleasant truth about the case. Those who want to see te sodomy laws overturned don't want to accept the potential logical consequences of their position, or perhaps more accurately don't want the general public to know the potential logical consequences of their position. It's similar to those supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment who were so outraged at suggestions that passage of the ERA could lead to unisex bathrooms in all public facilities. In fact, there was a very good legal case to be made that that's precisely what it would have meant, among many other things (such as front line troops being equally gendered and the draft extending to women.) Those would all have been probably consequences of the ERA, and IMO would have been just fine, true equality at last, but the supporters of the ERA didn't believe the average American would accept those consequences, so vigorously attacked anybody who suggested them. I think the same is happening here. If we truly have a SC decision that the State is forbidden to restrict consenting acts between consenting adults in the bedroom, then many consequences would flow from that including the ones Santorum suggested. But the opponents of the sodomy law, IMO, don't want to the public to know or understand that, so instead of addressing the issue head-on they attack the messenger. It's an age old tactic, which is still used because, sadly, it still works.