Lisa Whittier [07/09/2003]

To the editor:It's painfully evident that Ron Figuly is wallowing in a self-imposed vacuum, which is his choice, but I take exception to his suggestion that the rest of us should also live our lives in a state of static darkness. With his penchant for trotting out long-winded citations from moldering law journals, one would think he might have picked up some vague notion of constitutional principles along the wayeven if by accident.The Constitution was written to protect the rights of the individual and to insure against the rule of the majority. Indeed, the 14th Amendment protection of liberty exists to guard against the very impulse suggested by Figuly's vitriol. It is a promise of our constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter, the bedroom being high on the list. Giving substance to "liberty" is necessary to maintain the individual freedoms that are the essence of American democracy.Singling out certain classes of citizens for disfavored legal status (i.e. quarantining practicing homosexuals which Ron attests is "standard practice" for sexually transmitted diseases), violates the most basic requirement of the equal protection clause, because it denies those people equal protection of the laws. The Constitution, as written, does not give government the right to disadvantage one group of people, be they homosexuals, blacks, women or any other group that has suffered from less than equal footing with landed white men.It was not such a long time ago that miscegenation statutes forbade people of different races to intermarry. The proponents of those discriminatory laws advanced the same arguments of preservation of tradition, moral integrity and maintenance of the status quo. Traditions and liberties evolve and change with society and, if that were not the case, there would still be Jim Crow laws and the attendant state-sponsored right to discriminate against others. If the constitutional concept of equal protection means anything at all, it must at the very least mean that a bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate government interest.To call the recent Supreme Court decision handed down in Lawrence v. Texas "the court's usurpation of rights" is ludicrous. If you wish to discuss a case of judicial usurpation, I strongly suggest you look into the matter of Bush v. Gore for the greatest supreme court clunker to ever roll out of the hallowed halls of justice.And speaking of "the social desires of one judge," I have heard nary a peep from you about Judge Moore, the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who insists on posting the Ten Commandments in his courtroom, to the applause of the drooling sycophants who elected him. This act of sanctimonious showmanship is in complete defiance of the separation between church and state. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, by unanimous decision deemed this clown's behavior to be an affront to the Constitution and, more importantly, to the people of the state of Alabama whose lives are at his mercy. Not surprisingly, this case of extrajudicial intemperance was absent from your disturbing tirade.I write this letter with the hope that Ron Figuly picks up a copy of the United States Constitution and reads every word of it.