USA NEWS: Gay sex ban struck down
Joan Biskupic USA TODAY June 27, 2003
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court voted 6-3 on Thursday to strike down a Texas law that banned sex between homosexuals, a decision that was an unprecedented show of respect for gay men and lesbians.
Reversing a 1986 ruling that upheld anti-sodomy laws, the court's majority said the Texas law violated privacy rights. The decision changes the legal landscape for gays by declaring that the Constitution's guarantee of liberty forbids government from targeting their sexual practices.
The ruling also could help gay men and lesbians in legal disputes that arise from moral disapproval, whether on the job, in child-custody cases or over inheritance claims. The anti-sodomy laws in Texas and 12 other states invalidated Thursday rarely were enforced. But they, and the 1986 ruling, have been cited by courts to deny gay parents custody of their children or to reject bias claims by gay workers.
The men who challenged the Texas law that banned oral and anal sex ''are entitled to respect for their private lives,'' Justice Anthony Kennedy (news - web sites) wrote for the majority. ''The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime.''
In a rare reversal of a past ruling, the majority said the court's support of anti-sodomy laws 17 years ago ''was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today.''
Kennedy cited ''an emerging awareness that liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives.''
Justice Antonin Scalia (news - web sites) gave a fierce dissent from the bench. He called the ruling ''the product of a law-profession culture that has largely signed on to the homosexual agenda.'' Joined in writing by Chief Justice William Rehnquist (news - web sites) and Justice Clarence Thomas (news - web sites), who with Scalia are the court's most conservative members, Scalia said the ruling could lead to legal gay marriages in the USA.
But the majority said the case involved consenting adults in their own home, not government recognition of gay relationships.
The decision comes as the presence and power of gay men and lesbians is increasing in the USA and beyond. Last week, a court in Canada lifted a ban on same-sex marriages. Such a sea change is unlikely here anytime soon. But the ruling, on the last day of the 2002-03 term, was a reminder of how much the nation has changed since 1986.
Most states, including Georgia, source of the 1986 case, have dropped laws banning oral and anal sex. Some elected officials are now openly gay. Gay characters are common on TV and in movies. Employers routinely offer benefits to same-sex partners of workers.
''The court closed the door on an era of intolerance,'' said Ruth Harlow, legal director of Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, which represented Texas plaintiffs John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner. They were fined $200 each after Harris County sheriff's officers entered Lawrence's home in response to a false report about an armed man and found the pair having sex.
Tom Minnery, of the evangelical group Focus on the Family, said the ruling lifts ''the boundaries that prevent sexual chaos in our culture.'' Top