Supreme Court Strikes Down Sodomy Laws

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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court struck down a ban on gay sex Thursday, ruling that the law was an unconstitutional violation of privacy.

The 6-3 ruling reverses course from a ruling 17 years ago that states could punish homosexuals for what such laws historically called deviant sex.

Laws forbidding homosexual sex, once universal, now are rare. Those on the books are rarely enforced but underpin other kinds of discrimination, lawyers for two Texas men had argued to the court.

The men “are entitled to respect for their private lives,” Kennedy wrote.

The first March on Washington on October 11, 1987 was in protest of the Supreme Court upholding a similar law in Georgia. That was just after I came out, and was the first big gay rights event I went to. I was still in college at Ball State, and it was one of the most cathartic events of my life.

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