Court Ruling on Gays Fits the Constitution

Re “Six Justices Have Their Say: Morals R Us,” Commentary, July 2: Jonathan Cohn writes: “Our founding fathers did not fight the Revolutionary War over a right to homosexual sodomy. And it should be obvious that the Constitution they drafted a few years later did not create one.” Then again, the founding fathers did not fight for women’s suffrage, and the Constitution they wrote institutionalized human slavery. In noting that “our founding fathers simply did not share the gay-rights conclusions of today’s legal intelligentsia,” Cohn might note that they weren’t big supporters of labor unions or environmental protection, either. And who were the founding fathers if not the “legal intelligentsia” of their day?

Rich Seeley

Los Angeles

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Cohn makes a fuss about lack of respect for public morals and passes lightly over the “consent” issue that the court raised in its decision. Consent is the core of this issue. Consent is what separates victimless crimes from those acts where harming another individual or society is the intent -- malicious acts that truly should be prosecuted.

If homosexual individuals have the same standing before the law as heterosexual individuals, then sexual relations between consenting homosexual adults in the privacy of their homes is no one’s business but their own. By bringing in comparisons with bestiality and incest, Cohn reveals more about his own demons than those of homosexuals.

Sue Simmons

Corona del Mar

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The founding fathers also did not allow for women to vote, nor did they outlaw the institution of slavery despite the well-documented feelings of disgust for it held by many of them. Furthermore, they were quite skeptical of many of the motives of a purely democratic system, and so they enacted one of more complex design. Times change, and change comes from many directions. It is the beauty of our system of government that it can allow for such and yet maintain its brilliant structure.

Maggie Brennecke

North Hollywood