[bvw]

Justice Scalia (joined by the Chief Justice and Justice Thomas in dissent):

While overruling the outcome of Bowers, the Court leaves strangely untouched its central legal conclusion: Respondent would have us announce ... a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy. This we are quite unwilling to do. Instead the Court simply describes petitioners conduct as an exercise of their liberty (which it undoubtedly is) and proceeds to apply an unheard-of form of rational-basis review that will have far-reaching implications beyond this case.

[aristeides]

Uh oh. Kennedy's Opinion of the Court quotes and reaffirms the mysterious passage in Casey:

These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under the compulsion of the State.

[Dog Gone]

I expected this ruling, but not on these grounds. I thought the law would be ruled unconstitutional under the rationale of equal protection. The Texas law applied only to homosexuals, but heterosexuals could engage in the same acts without it being illegal.

But the fact that the court based the ruling on the "constitutional right to privacy", rather than equal protection is troubling.

It reaffirms that constitutional right that isn't visible in the words that were written by our Founders. If anything, this reaffirms Roe v. Wade, which was based on the same concept.

I'm not nearly as bothered by the ruling than by the legal rational used to get there. This has vast implications, I believe, although I haven't had the opportunity to read the case yet.