Last edited: February 14, 2005


Implications of the Supreme Court’s Ruling on Sodomy

Salt Lake Tribune, June 29, 2003
P.O. Box 867, Salt Lake City, UT 84110
Fax: 801-257-8950 Email: letters@sltrib.com
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/jun/06292003/commenta/70660.asp

By Paula Wolfe

Sodomy has been used to deny equal rights and equal protection to a group of people. Regularly, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of Utah are denied housing, are fired from their jobs, denied access to their partners in health-care situations. In Utah, members of this community are more than three times more likely to be a victim of a hate crime.

A year ago, the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Utah was asked to sign on to the amicus brief of Lawrence vs. Texas. On June 26, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a decision in that case that, in essence, invalidated 13 state sodomy laws, including Utah’s.

For a third of a century, sodomy laws permitted the government to dictate what was appropriate in our bedrooms. They controlled and defined the most intimate component of an adult relationship. Some sodomy laws, such as the one in Texas, named only homosexuals as potential offenders. Other state laws, including Utah’s, made illegal any non-procreative acts, regardless of sex or gender. In only four of the 13 states were the laws ever enforced. Invariably, they chose to prosecute only homosexuals. As Justice Sandra Day O’Connor pointed out, we were denied equal protection under the law.

Since Utah has not evoked [invoked?] its sodomy law, why is our gay community so excited about this decision? Sodomy has been used to deny equal rights and equal protection to a group of people. Regularly, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of Utah are denied housing, are fired from their jobs, denied access to their partners in health-care situations. In Utah, members of this community are more than three times more likely to be a victim of a hate crime. They are more likely to commit suicide. Lesbians are more likely to lose custody of their natural-born children, and men and women without any criminal conviction are denied the right to adopt a child.

Every year when the hate crimes bill comes before Utah’s Legislature, it stumbles over the term “sexual orientation.” The thinking seems to be that if homosexuals are illegal, they don’t deserve to be protected.

Not too many years ago we believed that African-Americans were inferior and therefore did not deserve the same rights as the rest of us. We created an entire culture built upon a notion of “separate but equal.” In an effort to join the rest of our society as full citizens, the gay community has struggled since the ‘60s for equal rights. The Supreme Court has taken a step toward the recognition of that protection and those rights.

The dissenting opinions written by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas argue that laws do control or define morality and that if a law was enacted yesterday, we should practice it today. From this perspective, I assume we should bring back the laws that permitted the burning of witches, laws against miscegenation and, while we are at it, let’s eliminate that vote for women.

On a more serious note, it is my hope that this decision will extend its influence beyond gay men and lesbians to include the rest of what some of us call the “queer” community. It is my hope that the rights to privacy and personal liberty will be extended to include those immigrants and naturalized citizens who were most recently held without any proof of wrongdoing, without the right of appeal, without an opportunity to let their families know where they were.

I hope this decision will shore up our commitment as a nation to the vision of our forefathers, to offer equal protection for every person in America.

  • Paula Wolfe, Ph.D., is executive director of the Gay & Lesbian Community Center of Utah.


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