Court Opinion

ID: 9587748
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:25:52.296486+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:34:32.405925
License: Public Domain

Sears, Justice,
concurring.
In broad terms, the dissent urges that once the legislature criminalizes any activity, courts are forbidden from passing on the “wisdom” of such laws.7 Otherwise, the dissent foretells that “anarchy” will reign.8 In making these statements, the dissent mischaracterizes the majority opinion. In this opinion, this Court in no way usurps the legislative function of promulgating social policy. Rather, in an inspired opinion, a majority of this Court today has fulfilled its constitutional responsibility within the American tripartite system of checks and balances. As well stated in the majority opinion, merely because the legislature has enacted a law which may impact upon the public’s moral choices, courts are not “bound to simply acquiesce.”9 It is the duty of this Court, and all courts, to ensure that, absent a compelling state interest, legislative acts do not impinge upon the inalienable rights guaranteed by our State Constitution. The dissent would default on its constitutional duty to protect these rights, and would defer instead to what it believes to be the moral choice of a majority.10 Yet, it is the very definition of a constitutional right that it cannot be made wholly subject to the will of the majority. 11 Otherwise, the principles that serve as bedrock for our *337Federal and State Bill of Rights will be reduced to mere rhetoric.
This nation was founded upon a great moral precept — that all persons are entitled to the free exercise of their liberty, which:
[E]mbraces the right of a [person] to be free in the enjoyment of the faculties with which he has been endowed by his Creator, subject only to such restraints as are necessary for the common welfare. Liberty includes the right to live as one will, so long as that will does not interfere with the rights of another or of the public. . . . All are entitled to liberty of choice as to his manner of life, and neither an individual nor the public has a right to arbitrarily take away from him his liberty.12
The individual’s right to freely exercise his or her liberty is not dependent upon whether the majority believes such exercise to be moral, dishonorable, or wrong. Simply because something is beyond the pale of “majoritarian morality” does not place it beyond the scope of constitutional protection. To allow the moral indignation of a majority (or, even worse, a loud and/or radical minority) to justify criminalizing private consensual conduct would be a strike against freedoms paid for and preserved by our forefathers. Majority opinion should never dictate a free society’s willingness to battle for the protection of its citizens’ liberties. To allow such a thing would, in and of itself, be an immoral and insulting affront to our constitutional democracy.
There will, of course, be those who will criticize today’s decision, and who may even seek to demonize some members of this Court for their legal analysis. This pattern of personally attacking and pillorying individuals who disagree with certain positions, rather than engaging in constructive ideological discourse with them, has regrettably become more and more prevalent in our culture. Those who would make such personal attacks, however, do not fully appreciate that all of my colleagues, those who agree with the majority as well as those who dissent, are honorable and decent jurists who struggle to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities to the people of this State.
Today, a majority of this Court fulfills its duties with a clearheaded and courageous decision. I fully concur with it.

 Dissent at 344.

 Id. at 340.

 Majority op. at 335.

 As once noted by United States Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, it is a commonly-held misconception that “the Constitution prohibits that which [the majority] thinks should be prohibited, and permits that which they think should be permitted.” Newsweek, Dec. 9, 1968 at p. 52.

 West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 637-638 (63 SC 1178, 87 LE2d 1628) (1943) (“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials. . . . One’s right[s] . . . may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no election.”).

 Pavesich v. New England Life Ins. Co., 122 Ga. 190, 196 (50 SE2d 68) (1905).