Are NYPD violating Griswold v. Connecticut ?
Please sign our petition : Commish Kelly : Stop arresting people for carrying condoms !
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), is a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. (Wikipedia) This case overturned the 1879, Victorian era law in Connecticut that banned the use of prophylactics by couples. Fast-forward to 2013, and we find the NYPD is arresting people for carrying prophylactics. What's going on here ?
Are NYPD violating Griswold v. Connecticut ? christine-quinn-sold-out.blogspot.com/2013/03/Would-… Police arrest LGBT for carrying condoms. @glaad@nationalnow @nytimes
— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) March 11, 2013
Discriminated Against and "Profiled" by NYPD, Transgenders in New York Fear Carrying Condoms. Would Heterosexual New Yorkers be Arrested for Carrying Birth Control ?
Please sign our petition : Commish Kelly : Stop arresting people for carrying condoms !
The NYPD profiles average law-abiding New Yorkers based on age, gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation. That's nothing new.
We already know that the NYPD targets transgenders for stop-and-frisks at more than double the rate of rest of the population in some neighborhood.
The harassment of innocent people carrying condoms has now reached absurd levels that some claim that the NYPD's discriminatory use of stop and frisk and arrests over the carrying of birth control may pose a risk to public health.
"Those who have been targeted by the police, or who know people who have, are so afraid of carrying condoms that they often don't," The Village Voice has reported.
"In a 2012 study by the Sex Workers Project and the PROS Network, a New York City coalition of sex workers, organizers, and service providers, close to half of the participants reported not carrying condoms at some point out of fear of police repercussions. Among participants who identified as either transgender female or another gender identity besides male or female, the rate was a staggering 75 percent," The Village Voice has reported.
"The New York City Department of Health has been giving away free condoms since 1971, and has made condom distribution a centerpiece of its public-health program over the past six years," added The Village Voice.
"The Department of Health is flooding the city with free condoms, and the police department is using those very condoms to make the quality-of-life arrests that are clogging the courts. It is difficult to avoid the impression that the NYPD is deliberately seeking to increase quality-of-life arrests—perhaps even meet quotas—with arrests that are blatantly at odds with the city’s own public-health policy," The Village Voice has reported.
But people's right to own and use condoms aren't the only rights at risk. Later Supreme Court cases, such as Roe v. Wade and Lawrence v. Texas, at least partially rest on the legal reasoning in Griswold.
Are Commish Kelly and NYPD trying to undo major advancements in civil liberties, women's rights, reproductive rights, and LGBT equality ? The critical Constituional right of due process, a woman's right to an abortion, and LGBT equality depend on the integrity of the Griswold case. What is motivating Commish Kelly and the NYPD to undermine Griswold ?
New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn looks the other way, because she wants to stay in good standing with Police Commish Raymond Kelly. She puts political expediency over our right to privacy, our equal rights, our reproductive rights, and our civil rights.
Related : SCOTUS justice Antonin Scalia suggests women have no right to contraception
Read more : Christine Quinn Betrays LGBT New Yorkers
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