Essay
3– Due July 26
Background:
In the most recent term, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled
on a case that challenged a Texas sodomy law. Lawrence
v. Texas struck down the Texas statute and ruled, in effect,
that all sodomy laws in the US are unconstitutional
and unenforceable
when
applied to non-commercial consenting adults in private.
Here is the ruling:
http://supct.law.cornell.edu:8080/supct/html/02-102.ZO.html
Here is a link to a page with links to case briefs, oral
arguments, and commentary:
http://www.sodomylaws.org/lawrence/lawrence.htm
You can find additional information and commentary by
searching Google for the case name:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Lawrence+v.+Texas&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
The question:
The
Lawrence v. Texas case successfully challenged
a Texas sodomy law. In addition to striking down the
Texas law, the ruling rendered all remaining
sodomy
laws
unconstitutional.
Please address the following issues in your essay:
- What was the primary legal justification for ruling
the statute unconstitutional?
- What is a secondary justification for striking down
this statute?
- Provide
a progression of five or more cases that led to the
Lawrence decision. Why
was the Lawrence decision consistent (or
not) with prior cases? In what ways did this progression
of cases follow (or deviate from) the
progression of cases?
- How
does this case strike down all sodomy laws (as opposed
to being a narrow ruling applicable to Texas)?
- For the sake of argument, lets say that one state
was inclined to enact a new law that would outlaw
sodomy.
Does
the Lawrence decision,
and dissenting opinions, provide any room for this new
statute?
As
with previous essays, some opinion is acceptable in answering
this question but try to stick with facts
and
logical
(as
opposed
to
emotional)
arguments. ____________________________________________
As a reminder, here are instructions from the course
outline:
Essays
should have sufficient breadth and depth to indicate
more than a passing awareness of the issues raised in
the questions. Grading will be determined based on the
thoroughness of response and the ability to properly
apply knowledge gained through reading the text. Essays
should be "term paper quality." Pay attention
to spelling, sentence and paragraph structure, organization,
and citations. Your papers should use APA style , which
is described in the Publication Manual of the American
Psychological Association (5th edition, 2001). Questions typically contain multiple parts. This is not
done to make questions more difficult. Multiple parts are
recommended to provide guidance that will lead to a high
quality answer. Remember to address each section but do
not assume that the ideas raised in each section are the
only issues to be addressed in your response.
Completed
essays should be e-mailed to mentor@nmsu.edu. Although
I have several e-mail addresses, this is the only
one you should use for this class. My computer can only
read certain formats. Fortunately, these are popular formats
and you should be able to submit assignments without any
problems. If you are using Microsoft Word, just save as
word and send. If you are using any other program please
save as .rtf before sending. Don't put anything after the
dot - let the computer take care of this. For example, "exam1.joe" will
not open on my computer. Use "exam1_joe" instead
and let the computer add the .doc or .rtf after your file
name. Send papers as attachments. Use the body of the message
to tell me what you are sending so I will know that you
are sending an intended attachment rather than a virus
or other malicious attachment.
|
