June 27, 2003
"It is monumental," said Jon Davidson, a Los Angeles-based attorney for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which represented the two Houston men at the center of the case. But the case alarmed and angered advocates of Christian family values, for whom homosexuality is abhorrent. "We think this is the start of the court putting San Francisco values on the rest of the country," said Peter LaBarbera, senior policy analyst with the Culture and Family Institute.
In the decision written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the court ruled that the Texas law prohibiting homosexual sex was an unconstitutional violation of the right to privacy. The ruling is expected to apply to sodomy laws in 12 other states, including nine that ban oral or anal sex between heterosexual as well as homosexual couples.
Stanford University law professor Pamela Karlan said the repercussions of the ruling might not be immediately apparent to the average American household. "Does it change what happens in the day-to-day lives of straight people? I'm not sure it does. But it does change the world in important ways," she said, by sending a powerful message that all adults should have the same rights in the nature of their intimate lives.
In opposing the decision, Christian fundamentalists believe sodomy laws uphold society's interest in maintaining moral order and argue that the transmission of HIV gives society an interest in prohibiting gay sex. "This is one of the worst decisions the court has ever made, in my opinion," said Scott Lively, an attorney and director of the American Family Association California. "It is an exercise in judicial activism that puts a stamp of approval on anything-goes sexuality."
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