The Supreme Court ruled on a matter of law, not a matter of morality. Within America's legal framework, the Court found that the state's right to interfere in private sexual matters is greatly outweighed by the individual's right to privacy. If, as Russell Kirk said, conservatives prize liberty over equality, then the liberty to indulge personal vices in private should trump the state's questionable concern over private behavior. The Court's decision was the right one.
It is highly debatable whether it was the MORAL one.
The Supreme Court ruled on a matter of law, not a matter of morality. Within America's legal framework, the Court found that the state's right to interfere in private sexual matters is greatly outweighed by the individual's right to privacy. If, as Russell Kirk said, conservatives prize liberty over equality, then the liberty to indulge personal vices in private should trump the state's questionable concern over private behavior. The Court's decision was the right one. The Supreme Court based its grant of her right to commit sodomy in private on the nonexistent privacy clause of the Constitution-the same clause which justifies abortion. I see no law in the Constitution which grants to the federal government through the judicial branch the right to restrain a state from regulating sodomy on privacy grounds. I say that you have it exactly backwards, that it was the Supreme Court which ruled as a matter of morality and not of law. When you say they weighed that morality against privacy I say that is a moral judgment because there is no such privacy clause in the Constitution.
