Word: dissents
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...those practices is firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards," said Chief Justice Burger in concurring with Justice White's majority opinion. "Homosexual sodomy was a capital crime under Roman law . . ." The same line of argument could presumably be made to support slavery, and Justice Blackmun's dissent offered a spirited rebuke from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: "It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished...
Supporters of gay rights quite naturally criticize the court's decision, but there is a more fundamental point in Justice Blackmun's dissent. "A necessary corollary of giving individuals freedom to choose how to conduct their lives is acceptance of the fact that different individuals will make different choices," he wrote. "It is precisely because the issue raised by this case touches the heart of what makes individuals what they are that we should be especially sensitive to the rights of those whose choices upset the majority." In this, Blackmun was echoing a famous argument by Holmes: "If there...
Harry Blackmun's passionate dissent (joined by William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and John Paul Stevens) asserted that "only the most willful - blindness could obscure" the connection between sexuality and the right to privacy. "No matter how uncomfortable a certain group may make the majority of this court," wrote Blackmun, that does not justify denying homosexuals the right to privacy. As for constitutional authority, the dissenters relied on the due-process clause and the Fourth Amendment's guarantee of "the right of the people to be secure in their persons (and) houses." Wrote Blackmun: "The right of an individual to conduct...
...dissent gathered new intensity two weeks ago, on the day the 78-seat Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont was due to close under orders from Britain. To dramatize their rejection of the Anglo-Irish accord, the Rev. Ian Paisley and members of his Democratic Unionist Party refused to leave the assembly hall. Finally, as the sit-in entered its eleventh hour, police moved in among the blue-leather benches and unceremoniously evicted the militant Protestants by force. That set off a full-scale fracas on the steep steps of the white-stone building. "Don't come crying...
...Justice is a lively and facile writer whose literate prose stands out on a court undistinguished by the eloquence of its opinions. In one dissent he borrowed from Gilbert and Sullivan to twit his colleagues for arrogating too much power to the federal courts: "The law is the true embodiment/ Of everything that's excellent/ It has no kind of fault or flaw/ And I, my Lords, embody...