U.S. court reverses anti-gay sex laws
Associated Press
Thursday, June 26, 2003
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a ban on gay sex Thursday, ruling that the law was an unconstitutional violation of privacy.
The 6-3 ruling reverses course from a ruling 17 years ago that states could punish homosexuals for what such laws historically called deviant sex.
The case is a major re-examination of the rights and acceptance of gay people in the United States. More broadly, it also tests a state's ability to classify as a crime what goes on behind the closed bedroom doors of consenting adults.
Thursday's ruling invalidated a Texas law against "deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex."
Defending that law, Texas officials said that it promoted the institutions of marriage and family, and argued that communities have the right to choose their own standards.
The law "demeans the lives of homosexual persons," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority.
Laws forbidding homosexual sex, once universal, now are rare. Those on the books are rarely enforced but underpin other kinds of discrimination, lawyers for two Texas men had argued to the court.
The men "are entitled to respect for their private lives," Kennedy wrote.
"The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime," he said.
Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer agreed with Kennedy in full. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor agreed with the outcome of the case but not all of Kennedy's rationale.
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.
"The court has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda," Scalia wrote for the three. He took the unusual step of reading his dissent from the bench.
"The court has taken sides in the culture war," Scalia said, adding that he has "nothing against homosexuals."
The two men at the heart of the case, John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner, have retreated from public view. They were each fined $200 and spent a night in jail for the misdemeanour sex charge in 1998.
The case began when a neighbour with a grudge faked a distress call to police, telling them that a man was "going crazy" in Lawrence's apartment. Police went to the apartment, pushed open the door and found the two men having anal sex.
As recently as 1960, every state had an anti-sodomy law. In 37 states, the statutes have been repealed or blocked by state courts.
Of the 13 states with sodomy laws, four _ Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri _ prohibit oral and anal sex between same-sex couples. The other nine ban consensual sodomy for everyone: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia.
Thursday's ruling apparently invalidates those laws as well.
The Supreme Court was widely criticized 17 years ago when it upheld an anti-sodomy law similar to Texas'. The ruling became a rallying point for gay activists.
Of the nine justices who ruled on the 1986 case, only three remain on the court. Rehnquist was in the majority in that case _ Bowers vs. Hardwick _ as was O'Connor. Stevens dissented.
The case is Lawrence vs. Texas, 02-102.
© Copyright 2003 Assoriated Press
