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Self-indulgent musings of a social retard. | |||||
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The very first thing I heard when I turned on the news this morning? "The Supreme Court has struck down Texas' sodomy law 6-3 on privacy grounds in an opinion authored by Justice Kennedy, who said that the law "demeans the lives of homosexual persons." I couldn't have been happier at that moment! The opinion reversed the Court's 1986 ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick, which said that states could punish gays for private consensual acts. In other words, those same acts would be perfectly legal if performed in opposite sex couples, but could be prosecuted if the couples were same sex. "The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime," Justice Kennedy said. Justices Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas dissented, and Justice O'Connor agreed with the outcome of the case but not all of Kennedy's rationale. Happy pride! BTW, The decision means that similar laws against sexual intimacy in the 12 other states that have them are also invalid. These include laws in Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma that apply only to gay people as well as laws in Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Utah, which make "sodomy" a crime for all people. It is not immediately clear what effect the Court's decision will have on Matthew Limon, whose case is still pending before the Supreme Court. Limon was convicted of having consensual oral sex with another male when they were both teenagers. Had the other teenager been a girl, Limon would be serving no more than a 15-month sentence. Because the other teenager was boy, Kansas law required that Limon be sentenced to 17 years in Kansas state prison. Limon's case is based not on the right to privacy, but on the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the law. However, the Kansas Courts relied on Bowers in rejecting Limon's appeal. The Supreme Court could send his case back to the Kansas courts, which should free him. |
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