New York — In the most significant ruling for gay rights in the United States, and one that affirms a fundamental right to privacy guaranteed in its Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday struck down a Texas law banning sodomy between same-sex couples, in effect ending all antisodomy laws in the 13 states where they still exist and removing one pillar of states' rights that permitted discrimination against gays and lesbians.
Addressing two cases simultaneously, the court ruled 6-3 against the Texas law in Lawrence et al v. Texas, and overturned 5-4 its original decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, a 1986 Georgia case in which it had originally declared that homosexual acts did not deserve the same level of protection as heterosexual relationships.
Writing for the majority in the 6-3 Texas decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy said that gay people "are entitled to respect for their private lives." He added, "The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime."
Siding with the majority but writing alone in an opinion, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said that homosexuals deserved equal protection under the law.
No federal laws in the United States prohibit discrimination based on sexual preference.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the dissent, joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas. In an echo of the 1986 decision, in which the court used particularly harsh antihomosexual language, Justice Scalia declared that the six majority justices had "signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda."
Referring to Canada's decision last week to permit gay marriage, he warned that the court's ruling would set the stage for a similar legal challenge in the United States. "Today's opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned."
Celebrations broke out last night in more than 30 cities across the United States, organized by the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the non-profit gay-rights organization that fought the case.
"It's a major turning point in the development of gay rights in the States," said Patricia Logue, one of the lawyers who argued the case. Ms. Logue said the court's 1986 ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick "has stood in the way of true equality for gay parents and gay employees and gay partners, and the court has sent it to the dustbins of history. It's a really watershed moment for us."
Lawrence v. Texas stemmed from a nighttime raid in 1998 in which police, acting on an intentionally erroneous weapons-violation complaint, intruded on the private Houston residence of John Lawrence, where they found him engaging in anal sex with Tyron Garner. After the two men pleaded no contest, spent a night in jail and paid a small fine, they asked to have the case moved to criminal court in the hopes of having the law eventually struck down.
The Texas law defines sodomy as "deviate sexual intercourse," which includes oral or anal sex. Four states — Texas, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma — outlaw sodomy between same-sex partners; nine others make it illegal between either same-sex or opposite-sex couples.
The decision affirms the limited role of the state in private affairs, a founding principle of the United States, but one to which it does not always adhere. "It's really an affirmation of a broad notion of personal liberty. The underlying question is: What is the role of government in the lives of free people?" Ms. Logue said. "Basically the government has no business deciding what people do in their intimate lives. So in that sense it helps straight people, married and unmarried, as well as gay people."
Critics attacked the decision and warned it could lead to scores of state laws that restrict sexual behaviour being struck down. "What you have here is a gaping hole in the walls of morality that had in the past protected one of the fundamental building blocks of society, namely marriage and the family," said Stephen Crampton, chief counsel for the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy, which had submitted a legal brief in the case.
"This is a big steppingstone for them in the same-sex marriage context," Mr. Crampton said. Like many critics, he suggested the decision will open the door to the legal acceptance of pedophilia, bestiality and prostitution in the United States. "All those are now fair game, because there's not a shred of law in this opinion that purports to differentiate between those categories of private consensual sexual conduct and the private consensual sexual conduct that the court holds is some sort of divine right in this opinion."
Some within the gay community hope that the repeal of sodomy laws will herald a new chapter among American gays and lesbians.
"To the extent that sodomy laws are no longer an obstacle for the ability to live an open and honest life, we really have to begin to think seriously about what sort of relationships we want to be establishing and building," said Marc Spindelman, an assistant professor of law at Ohio State University.
While Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Garner celebrated their victory last night, the new decision in the Georgia case came too late for Michael Hardwick, the Atlanta bartender who challenged the law in 1986. He died in 1991.
