In Lawrence v. Texas (2003 SCOTUS case striking down sodomy laws) Scalia offers the “world will crumble” argument is his dissent, asserting in part that:
The Texas statute undeniably seeks to further the belief of its citizens that certain forms of sexual behavior are “immoral and unacceptable,” –the same interest furthered by criminal laws against fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity. This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation. If, as the Court asserts, the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest, none of the above-mentioned laws can survive rational-basis review.
Thus, Scalia is grouping in homosexuals with immoral and unacceptable behavior such as fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity; saying that if you overrule a ban on that “nasty & immoral gay sex” then you have to legalize the rest of the “immoral and unacceptable behavior.” To characterize gay intimacy as parallel to bestiality and like like is appalling but not without traditional roots. A Mississippi law (now unconstitutional in part) groups, and has been interpreted to group, homosexual sex with bestiality:
§ 97-29-59. Unnatural intercourse – Every person who shall be convicted of the detestable and abominable crime against nature committed with mankind or with a beast, shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of not more than ten years.
Nothing earth shattering really to share here, I just found this statute in my day of work and it reminded me of Scalia’s association of gay sex to bestiality. Scalia sees homosexual activity as an immoral act thus providing a legitimate government interest for the government to regulate. That is his problem. If he viewed it as conduct unrelated to immorality it is characterized as, then there is no basis for government regulation and it should not be grouped with the likes of bigamy. Thus to counter Scalia, it is not an immoral act that warrants such regulation and thus the deregulation of it will not lead to the legalization of human/beast sex or father/daughter relations. In other words, the mighty fear that the world superpower will fall due to homosexual intercourse is rather silly and unfounded.
