Supreme Court Hears New Test of Bans on Sodomy

[Guest I'm That Damn Zzzzz]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAPWR3ERDD.html

Supreme Court Hears New Test of Bans on Homosexual Sex

By Anne Gearan Associated Press Writer

Published: Mar 26, 2003

 

 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) - A gay-rights case before the Supreme court tests how times have changed for the country and for the court itself, which was widely criticized for a ruling 17 years ago that upheld a ban on homosexual sex. The court could reverse course and declare a similar ban unconstitutional.

A large crowd gathered outside the court Wednesday in hopes of hearing oral arguments in one of the court's biggest cases this year. A knot of protesters stood apart, holding signs that read "AIDS is God's revenge," "God sent the sniper" and other messages.

Lawyers for two Texas men arrested in their bedroom are asking the court to overturn their convictions for sodomy under a state "Homosexual Conduct" law. The law unfairly treats gay men and lesbians differently from heterosexuals who may engage in the same kinds of sex acts and violates privacy rights, the opponents argued in court filings.

State anti-sodomy laws, once universal, now are rare. Those on the books are infrequently enforced but underpin other kinds of discrimination, lawyers and gay rights supporters said.

"We truly hope the Supreme Court in its wisdom will remove this mechanism that has been used for so long to obstruct basic civility to gay and lesbian people," said Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the gay rights organization Human Rights Campaign.

In 1986, a narrow majority of the court upheld Georgia's sodomy law in a ruling that became a touchstone for the growing gay rights movement. Even then the court's decision seemed out of step and was publicly unpopular, said Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, who argued on the losing side of the case.

"We're now dealing with a very small handful of statutes in a circumstance where the country, whatever its attitudes toward discrimination based on sexual orientation, (has reached) a broad consensus that what happens in the privacy of the bedroom between consenting adults is simply none of the state's business."

As recently as 1960, every state had a sodomy law. In 37 states, the statutes have been repealed by lawmakers or blocked by state courts.

Of the 13 states with sodomy laws, four - Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri - prohibit "deviate sexual intercourse," or 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.

An unusual array of organizations is backing the two Texas men. In addition to a long list of gay rights, human rights and medical groups, a group of conservative Republicans and the libertarian Cato Institute and Institute for Justice argued in friend of the court filings that government should stay out of the bedroom.

"This case is an opportunity to confirm that the constitutional command of equal protection requires that gays be treated as equal to all other citizens under the law, subject to neither special preferences nor special disabilities," the brief for the Republican Unity Coalition said.

On the other side, the Texas government and its allies say the case is about the right of states to enforce the moral standards of their communities.

"The states of the union have historically prohibited a wide variety of extramarital sexual conduct," Texas authorities argued in legal papers. Nothing in that legal tradition recognizes "a constitutionally protected liberty interest in engaging in any form of sexual conduct with whomever one chooses," the state argued.

Conservative legal and social organizations, religious groups and the states of Alabama, South Carolina and Utah back Texas in the case.

The case began in 1998, when a neighbor tricked police with a false report of a black man "going crazy" in John Geddes Lawrence's apartment. Police smashed their way in and found Lawrence having anal sex with another man, Tyron Garner.

Although Texas rarely enforced its antisodomy law, officers decided to book the two men and jail them overnight on charges of "deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex." They were each fined $200 plus court costs.

The case is Lawrence v. Texas, 02-102.

AP-ES-03-26-03 

 

I personally not sure what to think about this...

[Guest J*ingus]

Lift the damn ban, who cares what the hell two consenting adults do to each other.

[Guest Ace309]

Well, I'm not a lawyer (of course), but if A) The statute applies only to gay couples, and B) It's being ENFORCED, I don't see why the court would opt NOT to overturn it based on the right to privacy in the penumbra of the 5th Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th. I can't possibly think of a legal argument (as in, one based on the Constitution and not the Bible) that would allow them to keep the statute. Of course, I haven't read the previous case that upheld a sodomy statute, although I have read a Kentucky case (Commonwealth v. Wasson) where a state court struck down their own statute on state constitutional grounds.

 

I'd hope they strike it down, even though I'm straight and have never been to Texas.

[Guest SP-1]

God Sent the Sniper? I want to kick whomever had that sign in the f'ing teeth.

[Guest JangoFett4Hire]

Anyone else scared that they were arrested in their own BEDROOM? I could see if it were in public, but behind CLOSED DOORS?

 

*checks the calender to see what year it is*

 

Whew, it's NOT 1984

[Guest McLeary]

The lesson here is obvious: When having rough anal sex with another man, MAKE SURE ALL DOORS AND WINDOWS ARE COMPLETELY CLOSED. The curtains too. That oughtta doit.

[Guest Galactic Gigolo]

The reason the law had been able to stay on the books when someone previously challenged it was the "concern for public health and safety."

 

Uhh... Huh.

[Guest Ace309]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...o/scotus_sodomy

 

Interesting quote here from the Houston prosecutor. Apparently the argument for keeping the law is that the law encourages families and marriages, and this amounts to a sufficient level of state interest in preventing homosexual conduct.

 

There's an obvious logic gap, of course (It's not the case that if you don't engage in sodomy, you'll procreate. If gay men can't have sex with each other, they're no more likely to have sex with women.), but I haven't heard that argument before. Interesting way to look at it, if, imho, a little misguided.