Glenden BrownGriswold is more important the Roe (edited)
I’m not a lawyer- that’s Ed Firmage’s territory – so I may be completely wrong. But, I think Griswold v. Connecticut is a more important decision than Roe v. Wade.
In Griswold, the Supreme Court held that citizens have a right to privacy. Griswold was the basis for Roe and Lawrence (striking down state sodomy laws). The Court upheld the right of citizens to make moral decisions without government interference. In essence, the Court declared that the government cannot legislate morality. If Roe were overturned, the Court might issue an even stronger decision based on the right to privacy. To reach the goal of creating a “moral” nation, the right to privacy has to bite the dust.
It’s far off the radar, but you can periodically find conservatives attacking the Griswold decision for “inventing†the right to privacy. Here’s a classic example, and one of the first I remember reading. Money Quote: “In Griswold, the Court took it upon itself to open the door for a general ‘privacy’ right found nowhere in the Constitution.â€Â Another one “Death by Privacy” - Money quote: ”Wulf understood that the Court would be open to rewriting the Constitution by pretending to uphold it.” Conservatives will not make this argument too publicy or openly since most people think privacy is a good thing. Conservatives will talk about the right to privacy going too far or that privacy should not protect people for making harmful decisions; in conservative thinking immoral and harmful are the same (which is why conservatives go to such great lengths to prove that homosexuality is physically harmful).
Cultural conservatives love legislating morality. Using the formulation ”That which is immoral should be illegal to protect people from making immoral choices they would make unless they feared legal punishment” cultureal conservatives believe legislating morality is good and necessary. The construct is simple: People will only do what is moral if they are afraid of punishment or have extreme self-discipline instilled in them. Almost any rhetoric employed is nothing more than window dressing on this basic formulation. From the perspective of the cultural conservative, this is a legitimate use of governmental power.
Should conservatives succeed in overturning Roe, their next target will be Griswold. They won’t argue that privacy is the problem – campaigning against the right to privacy is political suicide – they will argue the moral case about contraception – that it undermines families, that it is against nature, so forth and so on. Conservatives often follow their own arguments to the logical ends, hence the phenomena of “snowflake babies.â€Â The attack on privacy will be coded, subtle, and built entirely on the notion of preserving morality. Privacy and morality will eventually be publicy opposed to one another.
If they undo Griswold, conservatives will make the argument that there is no right to privacy, that legislating morality is for the public good and the public good overrides individual right to privacy. Conservatives yearn for a return to the mythical 50’s of sitcoms – a time they believe things were simpler and there were none of our contemporary problems. And they want to drag the rest of us there with them and if it means giving up the right to privacy, it’s a price conservative believe we should all pay.
October 30th, 2006 at 10:09 pm
That entirely depends upon the century. The greatest case of the 20th century, in America (meaning USA), was Brown v. The Board of Education. Following that Flagship, came the flotilla of human rights: color; race; ethnicity; nationality; gender; sex (no boys, they’re not the same); individuality (now). And by the last, we’re, of course, into the nineteenth and the twenty-first century. What else would you expect?
A clue, folks. think and vote left, but watch your right. All traditional people know this. Watch, in any good movie, who sits next to whom. It never fails. Just watch where people seat themselves, or are seated. You go to a restaurant, or invite someone to your home, or someone, or someones, enter unanounced. Watch, in any case, who ends up seated next to whom. People come in, consciously, to talk to the person on their left. They end up talking to someone on their right. Even in Utah. Watch the old Eyes on the Prize videos, that I originally bought from my own pocket because the law school was to damned cheap to buy such stuff. They wanted “real law,” so of course the damned fools were always looking the wrong way. BUT even fools (think Bush the Less) finally get it. And when they do, watch out. Watch your back. But watch who talks to whom. And sits by whom. Watch, for example, where Martin Luther King, J., is in the earliest of the series. And where he ends up. Why. First and last. The dance isn’t over. The damned fools just think it is. It’s just beginning. Think, with me, about Libertarian case law. And then thirty or forty years. And then a Great Depression that I remember well. And then a Brandeis brief. IF you’re still with me, you’re too damned old to interest me. But keep thinking. Examine my article, Why did the Watchdogs Never Bark? And Steve Clark’s lovely chapter. And Jack Gallivan’s wondrous chapter. And realize that things aren’t what they seem. Keep tunes. For a very short time, the bad guys, as usual, are looking the wrong way. Ed Firmage ps. walk for our senate candidate. I will. I promise. And I never lie. Then read my introduction, in fact, all the introductions, in Zion in the Çourts. Try, for example, my own website. Hello, Cliff. It’s All Hallow’s Eve. ef too tired to proof. Do the colored pencil bit. I’m going to bed. Big day tomorrow, at the hospital ef xoxox
October 31st, 2006 at 10:25 am
Ed - please explicity connect the dots for me - why do you believe Brown more important than Griswold. Thanks!