A well-deserved victory

Congratulations to all the gays and lesbians in Texas who now have a legal right to have sex with each other! And congrats those those in other states (like mine) where similar laws will now be overturned. I'm really happy for all of you!

Even though these laws have never affected me, personally (since I'm straight), I've never considered them to be fair or reasonable, and am glad that the Supreme Court - especially this Supreme Court in this administration - finally had the sense to realize that the laws were wrong.

I hope that this ruling will also overturn the odd "Romeo and Juliet" laws, such as the one Kansas has, where penalties for cases involving statuatory rape are reduced if the individuals involved are teens and within a few years of each other - but the reduced penalties only apply for heterosexual couples. As a result, a young man who - had his partner been female - would have been sentenced to 1 year in jail, instead was sentenced to 17 years.

The other bit of hope comes, oddly, from Antonin Scalia, who notes that the ruling may help in opening the way for the legailzation of gay marriage.

Although the majority opinion said the Texas case didn't "involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter," Scalia said the ruling invites laws allowing gay marriage.

"This reasoning leaves on shaky, pretty shaky grounds, state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples," Scalia wrote.

On a side note: Blogging may be slow the next couple days. My copy of Harry Potter just arrived, and, well, I'm likely to get rather caught up in it (if it's as good as the last 4 were).