Judith E. Schaeffer: Five Years Later: Decriminalizing Gay People -- Another Reminder of the Importance of the Supreme Court

Published: June 25, 2008, 7:46 pm

Many people probably don't recall much, if anything, about June 26, 2003, but I recall a great deal. That's because it's the day on which the Supreme Court issued one of its most important rulings in the area of individual rights and human dignity. In Lawrence v. Texas, a sharply divided Court struck down a Texas state law that prohibited consensual, private sex between adults of the same gender, a law that essentially made criminals out of gay men and lesbians. Five justices held that the law was an improper intrusion on the right to liberty guaranteed to everyone by the Constitution, effectively invalidating all state laws that invade the home to prohibit so-called sodomy. Five years later, I can still recall vividly the absolute joy and elation that I felt learning that these pernicious laws were no more. The Court's ruling meant not only that these laws could no longer be used to intrude into a realm of personal conduct in which government has no place, but also that they

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