Issues@Hand

AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs

August 2003 – In a June 26 ruling that has grieved pro-family groups, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Texas’ sodomy statute, effectively nullifying similar laws in 12 other states. Moreover, the decision provides even more momentum for a homosexual-rights juggernaut that is now setting its sights on same-sex marriage.

The case, Lawrence v. Texas, was a legal challenge on behalf of two homosexual men, John G. Lawrence and Tyrone Garner, who were having sex in their bedroom when police entered their apartment. Law enforcement had been summoned by a neighbor – a friend of the two men – who called and falsely claimed that a man was in the men’s apartment waving a gun.

The 6-3 vote was not unexpected. It was the same margin as the high court’s equally controversial 1996 Romer v. Evans decision, which affirmed that opposition to homosexuality was based purely on prejudice.

Nevertheless, the rationale in Lawrence has sweeping implications. It established a constitutional right to privacy that encompasses non-public sexual activity, priming the pump for legal challenges to laws forbidding incest, bestiality, and prostitution – and perhaps even to laws which forbid the recreational use of drugs in the home.

Furthermore, the decision all but prohibits the government from passing laws that make moral judgments on private activities. It threatens to wipe away any moral distinctions between heterosexuality and homosexuality.

Homosexual activists see the opening created by Lawrence v. Texas, and have promised to use the ruling to push for same-sex marriage. Celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision, David Smith, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay rights pressure group in the nation, said, "The issue of marriage for gay couples is going to come to the forefront."

That eventuality has led many Christians and other conservatives to support the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would head off the homosexual drive to open marriage to gays and lesbians. (See related feature story, here.)