Texas’ same-sex sodomy law is currently being scrutinized by the Supreme Court (Lawrence v. Texas). Let’s hope they do the right thing and strike it down. Links: Post article and oral argument excerpts. Andrew Sullivan recommends Dahlia Lithwick’s account in Slate. And here’s a bit from today’s Times editorial:
The Supreme Court now has a chance to right that wrong. Two Texas men are challenging their convictions for engaging in consensual sexual relations in a private home. They argue that Texas’s sodomy law deprives them of the right of intimate association other Americans enjoy. And they make a compelling case that the law renders gays second-class citizens. The fact that sodomy is illegal, they note, has been invoked to deny gay people jobs, deny them the protection of hate crime laws and bar them from visiting rights with their own children.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist seemed to defend the Texas law yesterday when he said, “Almost all laws are based on disapproval of some people or conduct.” That may be. But among the court’s most important decisions of the past half-century have been those that ban discrimination. Sodomy laws, which deprive homosexuals of the right to privacy that other Americans take for granted, violate this nation’s Constitution and its spirit. The court should strike down the Texas law and extend to gay Americans full equality under the law.
An aside: I really want to see the Supreme Court in action. One of these days I’ll visit the Court to watch a proceeding.