Liberation Day

The ruling in Lawrence v. Texas presents a rare case of stand-up-and-cheer language in a Supreme Court majority opinion. From Justice Kennedy's ratio:

Liberty protects the person from unwarranted government intrusions into a a dwelling or other private places. In our tradition the State is not omnipresent in the home. And there are other spheres of our lives and existence, outside the home, where the State should not be a dominant presence. […] It suffices for us to acknowledge that adults may choose to enter upon this relationship in the confines of their homes and their own private lives and still retain their dignity as free persons. When sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another peson, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring. The liberty protected by the Constitution allows homosexual persons the right to make this choice.

As they say, read the whole thing.

This is actually an even more important victory than it may appear at first. As Joseph Landau noted in an excellent New Republic article (reg. required), while sodomy laws are rarely enforced, they have been used as an excuse for public school administrators to suppress the formation of gay student groups and to justify state discrimination against homosexuals in hiring for government jobs.

Anyway, Rick Santorum's doubtless upset, but this is unambiguously good news. Go out and celebrate in a suitable way with a person of the apposite sex.