Re:Supreme Court strikes down Texas sodomy law (Dallas Morning News, Thursday, June 26th)

["a.ceresa2002" <a.ceresa2002 at libero.it>]

> Supreme Court strikes down Texas sodomy law
> 06/26/2003
> By ALLEN PUSEY / The Dallas Morning News
> www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/062603dnnatsodomy.61aef.html
> 
> WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down laws in
> Texas and 12 other states that criminalize sex between adults of the
> same gender - a decision that will have widespread effect on issues of
> personal privacy, as well as gay rights.
> Speaking for a 6-3 majority that struck down the Texas law, Justice
> Anthony Kennedy said that gays are "entitled to respect for their
> private lives" and that government "cannot demean their existence or
> control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime."
> He was joined by Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Stephen Breyer, John Paul
> Stephens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter.
> Justice O'Connor, while joining the majority against the Texas law in a
> concurring opinion, also defended the court's ruling in a past sodomy
> case, leaving a majority of 5-4 to strike down the other states' laws.
> Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence
> Thomas dissented on both counts. Writing for the minority, Justice
> Scalia said that the majority had "taken sides in the culture war."
> The decision reversed the court's 1986 ruling in the Bowers vs. Hardwick
> case, in which a 5-4 majority affirmed a Georgia criminal law banning
> consensual sex between same-sex adults. At the time, Justice Byron White
> rejected the notion that any private sexual conduct, even within the
> home, is constitutionally protected.
> "This is a historic day," said Ruth Harlow of the Lambda Legal Defense
> Fund, a gay-rights advocacy group. "The court has had the courage to
> reverse the decision it made 17 years ago and the wisdom to decide that
> case was wrong even then."
> "This is a giant leap forward to a day where we are no longer branded as
> criminals and where that is no longer accepted by the most powerful
> court in the country,"
> Of 13 states that criminalized sodomy, four, including Texas, apply the
> law only to same-sex intercourse - defined in Texas as anal or oral sex.
> Texas' law - Section 21.06 of the Texas penal code, also known as the
> Texas Homosexual Conduct Law. - originally included even married
> heterosexual couples but was changed in 1973.
> Although the change was intended to liberalize laws on sexual conduct,
> gays and lesbians charged that it, in effect, disqualified homosexuals
> from employment and social opportunities by declaring their private
> behavior against the law.
> "This decision very strongly recognizes ... that our lives are entitled
> to the same protections under the Constitution as other people's lives,"
> Ms. Harlow said. "And so while it doesn't decide any of those other
> controversies that involved any of those other forms of discrimination,
> it certainly puts us on a much stronger footing to attack other forms of
> discrimination."
> Rallies in support of today's Supreme Court decision were scheduled in
> Dallas and 36 other cities around the U.S. on Thursday.
> The case the Court heard involved two Houston men, John G. Lawrence and
> Tyron Garner, believed to be the only consenting adults ever prosecuted
> under Texas' law.
> In September 1998, police responding to a report of an angry gunman,
> burst into a Houston apartment and discovered Mr. Lawrence and Mr.
> Garner engaging in consensual sex. Instead of ignoring the false alarm,
> they arrested the two men for violation of Section 21.06.
> Although the caller - later identified and prosecuted - admitted that he
> had intended to harass Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Garner, the case was not
> dropped. Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Garner pleaded "no contest" to the charge
> and were fined $200, but they made clear their intention to challenge
> the law.
> On Thursday, Mr. Lawrence said he and Mr. Garner shared the victory
> "with gay people in all 50 states who are better off today than they
> were yesterday."
> "We never c
igures or to take on this fight," Mr.
> Lawrence said during a conference call with reporters. "We also never
> thought we could be arrested this way. Not only does this ruling let us
> get on with our lives, but it opens the door for gay people all across
> the country to be treated equally."
> Paul M. Smith, who argued the case for Houston plaintiffs, called it a
> "new day for gay Americans, starting today."
> In a brief arguing for the Texas law, Harris County prosecutors had
> argued that the Supreme Court had never recognized a right to sexual
> conduct "outside the venerable institution of marriage."
> But during oral arguments in the Houston case in March, several justices
> openly questioned both who and what was being protected by the Texas
> law.
> More than 100 organizations, including the AFL-CIO, the Anti-Defamation
> League, the American Public Health Association and the Cato Institute, a
> libertarian think tank, filed briefs in support of Mr. Lawrence and Mr.
> Garner. They were opposed by groups such as Jerry Falwell's Liberty
> Counsel and the American Family Association, a Christian lobbying group,
> along with the states of Alabama, South Carolina and Utah - all of which
> have sodomy laws.
> Gay rights groups had said that a court ruling against the sodomy laws
> could vastly expand privacy rights and protections for gays. They noted,
> for example, that without the laws on the books, homosexuals could apply
> for jobs in fields such as law enforcement and to adopt children without
> lying when asked if they had broken the law.
> In one "friend of the court" brief filed for the American Civil
> Liberties Union, Harvard constitutional lawyer Laurence H. Tribe argued
> that the Bowers decision was "an anomaly." In the last 40 years, he
> said, the court has struck down a number of state laws that tried to
> regulate sex, and even child-bearing, among married and unmarried
> couples.
> Mr. Tribe argued that sodomy laws have existed for centuries but have
> seldom
he prosecution of consenting adults. Neither Mr.
> Tribe nor the Harris county prosecutors were aware of any similar Texas
> case.
> "It was gratifying today to hear the court in ringing affirmation join
> the community of nations," he said. "The state has no business dictating
> the most intimate, private relations of consenting American adults."
> Mr. Tribe said the ruling extended not only to the criminalization of
> sexual behavior but also spoke to the discrimination against gays and
> lesbians made possible by such criminal laws.
> "They said it's not the state's business to categorize people in these
> ways," he said.
> 
> --
> 
> Dallas Web staff writer Walt Zwirko contributed to this report.
> 
> E-mail apusey at dallasnews.com



To Mr. George W. Bush
President of the United States of America

The White House
1600, Pennsylvania Avenue NW.
Washington, DC 20500
United States of America
Fax: 001 202 456 2461
E-mail: president at whitehouse.gov



Subject: Important discovery to reduce pollution and greenhouse effects, obstructed by the press and punished by Italian campaigning magistrates unsuitable for a court of law.


Dear President,

I wish to refer to the letter send by a group of Mayors on date May 2002 to your Excellency as President of the United States of America, were the contents are briefly reported hereunder for reference: 

<< we would like to underline the dangers that our local communities, all located on delicate coastal areas, are facing due to global climate change caused by excessive pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Our cities will be heavily affected, not only by the raising of the sea level, but also by the probable intensification of extreme climate conditions. The case of Venice and its lagoon is a prime example. A world cultural and enviromental heritage of mankind is destined to suffer tremendously, because of the intensification of periodical flooding, by the effects of global climate changes. Consequently, international support that Venice
o from private donors from the United States, is bound to be rendered useless.
The letter continue with reference to the Kyoto Protocol. >> 

To my opinion, all those respectable public Amministrators are acting on their own, organizing seminars and conferences aiming to contribute further to global warming, ready to wipe anything not in line with programs, living science and progress out of any decision that could drive the community to a better solution of the quality of life.

It shall be easier to organize a national or international contest, open to all men of science, to resolve arduos decision that concerns a local community inconvenience, in place to appeal to The President of the United States of America to feed solution free efforts. 

We all know that carbon dioxide, monoxide and pollution in general, affecting human health as well as the natural echo system, but international local goverments policies stack over more use of mineral combustibles and gases, and any consequence caused by global climate change are yelled as a frighful demonstration of concern, while from the other hand they are programmed to intensify import of combustibles with oil tankers that destroy the seas and the seas coast, and also with dangerous long pipelines crossing the world.
I personally feel tremendously resentful for the double interpretation of most respectful Mayors, not considering the real danger they are causing to the world, relaing on other peoples from the other side of the planet, for important decision that concerns their own present community responsabilities.

I am a private researcher and few years ago I have discovered the know-how to exploit a new long lasting pure energy, free pollution, and free cost, to contribute to reduces global climate changes caused by intensive use of combustibles and gas emissions.

The discovery is characterized by a clean, noiseless industrial motor that turns exclusively with its own resources, exited by the atmospheric pressure that creates the gravity on free fall
mportant positive factors: The motor operates continuously without combustibles. Even dangerous gasses used for cooking  and hot water system inside homes and factory premises shall be considered obsolete. 
The trend of the discovery relays esclusively on the exploitation of natural gravity energy, available uninterruptedly from nature at free cost.

The industrial motor can be produced and arranged with electric power generators to suit any request of electric power on the place of demand, saving over 89% of actual national costs imposed by the italian monopole, without transformers, overhead lines,  saving the cost of combustibles and gases and also reduce considerably relative damages caused by pollution to the environment and to human beings.

Since I have proposed the new discovery in Italy, I obtained negative result with a series of disadventures: I had my car burn, I have been indicted for robery with my wife, organized by paid up unscrupulous speculators, nearly loose all my family on a murder attept, but the ridiculous fact proof that justice were always absent in all three cases. 

From this experience I learned that wrong people on key position and bad justice, produces terrorism, killings and never ending incomprehensions, especially when campaigning magistrates result unsuitable for judgement in a court of law.

I am confident the President will agreed with me, the problem of justice comes long before the problem of Venice, Rome or Katmandu. 
To resolve intensification of extreme climate conditions it is imperative to avoid injustices and uncompetent campaigning magistrates, that render useless any teaching of honour and human brotherhood..

With my deepest respect, I am of the opinion that all countries of the free world should reduce the cooperation, limiting tourism and forbit private donation to those countries with a false image, untill is reached a standard equilibrium on justice, wild monopolism and free press information.  

Sincerely,

Anthony Ceresa – Via Ucelli di Nemi, 36
 20138 Milan Italy.
Tel./Fax: ++++ 02 5065 345  -  E-mail: a.ceresa2002 at libero.it

(Continue with copy to the distribution list of signatories of the letter to the President) 
DISTRIBUTION LIST 1 (Global Warming)

TO: 

contact at ecobridge.org.

Mr. Paolo Costa
Mayor of Venice – Italy            
Fax: 041 5200 782

Mr. Kari Nenonen
Mayor of Oulu – Finland
Kari.nenonen at ouka.fi
cemr at oulu.fi

Mr. Per Ditlev Simonsen
Mayor of Oslo – Norway
mariannegrimstad.hansen at radhuset.oslo.kommune.no

Mr. Richard Leese
Leader of Manchester City Council – England – UK
City.council at notes.manchester.gov.uk

Mr. Walter Veltroni
Mayor of Rome – Italy
Fax: 06 6710 3590

Mr. Fabio Sturani
Mayor of Ancona – Italy
Fax: 071 2222 109

Mr. Giuseppe Pericu
Mayor of Genoa – Italy
Fax: 010 5572 048

Mr: Simeone di Cagno Abbrescia
Mayor of Bari – Italy
Fax: 080 5216 391

Msrs. Rosa Russo Jervolino
Mayor of Naples – Italy                     
Fax: 081 5800 604

Mr. Umberto Scapagnini
Mayor of Catania – Italy
Fax: 095 7423 758

Mr. Thomas M. Menino
Mayor of Boston – Massachusetts – Usa
mayor at cityofboston.gov


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