High court to decide sodomy case

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court reopened a homosexual rights issue Monday, agreeing to decide a case that asks if it's unconstitutional for states to punish same-sex couples for having sex.

Justices will decide if Texas violated the rights of two men convicted, under a rarely used state law, of having intercourse.

The Supreme Court has struggled with how much protection the Constitution offers in the bedroom. The court ruled 5-4 in 1986 that consenting adults have no constitutional right to private homosexual sex, upholding laws that ban sodomy.

The latest case gives the court a chance to overturn that decision and strike down sodomy laws in Texas and 12 other states.

"I think most Americans would be shocked that there are still laws like this on the books," said the Texas men's lawyer, Ruth Harlow, legal director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York.

She said the latest census found more than 600,000 households of same-sex partners in America, including about 43,000 in Texas.

Richard Ackerman, an attorney for the California-based Pro-Family Law Center, said he worried that the case might energize efforts to recognize same-sex marriages. He also said that states should be given leeway to protect the public from the spread of diseases like AIDS.

The court will consider: Is it an unconstitutional invasion of privacy for couples to be prosecuted for what they do in their own homes? Is it unconstitutional for states to treat gays and lesbians differently by punishing them for having sex while allowing heterosexual couples to engage in the same acts without penalties?

Sodomy is "abnormal sex," and in some states that's defined as anal and oral sex. Nine states ban consensual sodomy for everyone: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia. In addition, Texas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma punish only homosexual sodomy.

States argue that the laws are intended to preserve public morals. They are rarely enforced.

"We don't believe there's any fundamental right to engage in sexual conduct of this kind. There's a long-standing shared cultural belief that the conduct is wrong," William Delmore III, an assistant district attorney in Texas, said Monday.

John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner were arrested in 1998 in Lawrence's apartment, jailed overnight and later fined under Texas' Homosexual Conduct Law, which classifies anal or oral sex between two men or two women as deviate sexual intercourse.

PRISON VISITATION: The court agreed to decide how far states can go in restricting visits to prison in a case that could further limit the rights of the 1.4-million inmates now behind bars. The court -- which has previously upheld limits on prisoners' books, packages and visitors -- will decide whether Michigan prison officials can ban visits by some child relatives and former prisoners and can prevent some inmates from receiving anyone other than lawyers and clergy.

TRIBAL LAWSUITS: The Bush administration asked the justices to limit lawsuits filed by American Indian tribes contending the Interior Department failed to protect tribal resources. Otherwise, the government, which manages 56-million acres of land for the benefit of tribes, could be subject to a mountain of lawsuits, argued Assistant Solicitor Gregory G. Garre.

HOUSING PREJUDICE: The plight of a mixed-race couple turned away from buying a house in a small California desert town will go before the court this week in a case that will decide who can be held liable for blatant racial discrimination in real estate sales. At issue is whether brokers and supervisors can be sued if an agent discriminates against a potential buyer.

SUIT AGAINST FBI: The court refused to stop a lawsuit that accused FBI officials of punishing an investigator in another agency for criticizing the Clinton administration's national security. Justices declined without comment to consider whether former FBI director Louis Freeh and others were protected from the lawsuit, filed by an Energy Department employee who claimed Chinese spies had penetrated U.S. weapons laboratories.

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