Gay Thursday: The Ayes of Texas

17 August 1982 (a quarter of a century ago) From The Gay Decades, Leigh W. Rutledge

A federal judge repeals the sodomy laws of Texas on the grounds that They are unconstitutional. Shortly afterward, conservative state legislators--and even a few who normally aren't so conservative but who want to score some easy points with voters who are becoming increasingly panicked over AIDS--begin a campaign to put new laws on the books, laws that will pass approval with the federal bench. They finally succeed three years later wiht the passage of a bill that prohibits homosexual sodomy only.




Then along came the Supremes seventeen years later:


Tuesday, November 18, 2003 Posted: 11:00 AM EST (1600 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Supreme Court Thursday struck down a Texas state law banning private consensual sex between adults of the same sex in a decision gay rights groups hailed as historic.



The 6-3 decision by the court reverses course from a ruling 17 years ago that states could punish homosexuals for what such laws historically called deviant sex.
Legal analysts said the ruling enshrines for the first time a broad constitutional right to sexual privacy, and its impact would reach beyond Texas and 12 other states with similar sodomy laws applied against the gay and lesbian community, and into mainstream America.




"The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court's majority. "The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime."

Of the 13 states with sodomy laws, four -- Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri -- prohibit 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.




One small step for mankind.