You see, all of your reasonably-intelligent discussion of the nuances of the 9th and 14th amendments, the precedents involving Loving, Griswold, Bowers and Lawrence are probably mostly lost on the Broadsheet authors. . . But again, the kind of nuanced and informed debate that you and I may have as lawyers undoubtedly goes clean over the heads of the Broadsheet Broads.

Don't you worry about them, sweet pea.

As for you and me, I think Scalia's dissent in Lawrence v. Texas is one of the great documents in American history, alongside the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln's Second Inaugural and Mitch McConnell's "You're looking at the plaintiff" speech on the Senate floor. So if you're trying to convince me of some utility of Lawrence v Texas other than as repugnant precedent, you won't.

So, then, you don't think there's a constitutionally protected right to privacy in the bedroom? I see.

Let's read from that dissent from Lawrence, shall we?

The Texas statute undeniably seeks to further the belief of its citizens that certain forms of sexual behavior are “immoral and unacceptable,” Bowers, supra, at 196–the same interest furthered by criminal laws against fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity. Bowers held that this was a legitimate state interest. The Court today reaches the opposite conclusion. The Texas statute, it says, “furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual,” ante, at 18 (emphasis addded). The Court embraces instead Justice Stevens’ declaration in his Bowers dissent, that “the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice,” ante, at 17. This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation. If, as the Court asserts, the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest, none of the above-mentioned laws can survive rational-basis review.

This is a great document, along with the Declaration of Independence?

As regards Loving v. Virginia, you unfortuantely get a "D" on your constitutional history. Loving wasn't decided on right to privacy grounds. It was decided on Equal Protection and Due Process grounds, and correctly so.

That is true, and McCreary and Yoder are not technically "right to privacy cases" either, especially since McCreary was decided before Griswold, which established this right. In Loving, the court held that "Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival...." What was this right based on? It's not in the constitution. It's the right to intimate association, of course, which is one of the explicitly stated rights that is the bedrock for the inferred right to privacy (along with the 4th and 5th amendments and such).

You still left unanswered some very pressing questions:

- what is this strange right that can be completely prohibited and not violate the constitution? are there other rights like that?

- what's the 9th amendment all about?

- can a state constitutionally prohibit all marriage without violating the constitution? how about gastric bypass surgery? If Scalia's dissent is correct, then morally-based legislation is sound, so prohibiting activities that are not explicitly spelled out in the constitution (marriage, gastric bypass surgery, homeschooling, driving, etc.) for moral reasons is okay, right?

What strange rights those are, the exercise of which can be constitutionally completely banned by states. Pray tell, what other "rights" work like that?

Moreover, since marriage is not in the constitution, nor is medical privacy, could a state ban all marriage constitutionally? How about ban all gastic bypass surgeries? Constitutional? Or are these more of these strange "rights" that can be wholly infringed upon without violating the constitution?