Jul 04, 2003  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR.  | COMMENTS     

Emboldened by last week’s Supreme Court decision overturning the nation’s sodomy laws, gay rights attorneys say they are mapping plans to use the landmark decision as a springboard to improve the lives of gay people in all sectors of American society.

“Our victory last week was just the beginning,” said Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, the group that organized the legal case that led to the high court’s decision known as Lawrence v. Texas.

“In corporate board rooms, state legislatures and neighborhoods all across the country, this ruling has sparked a profound dialogue about the rights of lesbians and gay men in this country,” Cathcart said. “We’re on stronger ground than ever before to fight for gay couples, parents, employees and students to win fairness in every area of life.”

Lambda outlined some of its plans for using the Lawrence decision in future efforts in a newly created “LGBT Equality” Web site launched on July 2. The group states on the site that it will take immediate steps to capitalize on the Lawrence decision to more aggressively push for “recognition of same-sex relationships” and to protect legal rights for gay parents and their children. The plans also call for securing employment protections for gays and transgendered persons and to ensure that gay youth are no longer subjected to violence and harassment in schools.

Attorneys with Lambda and other gay groups have said the court’s decision would have a dramatic effect in the 13 remaining states that had sodomy laws, particularly on gay adoption and child custody cases. Officials in a number of those states have denied custody rights and adoption on the grounds that gay men and lesbians were “habitual” violators of sodomy laws, making them criminals in the eyes of the law.

Now, legal experts say, state officials and courts in charge of adoption and child custody decisions can no longer use sodomy laws to discriminate against gays seeking custody rights or applying for adoptions.

Patricia Logue, Lambda’s legal director, said Lambda and other gay legal groups believe the Lawrence decision’s impact on gays in the military is less clear. She said the groups are studying whether the decision could be used to overturn the Pentagon’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which bars gays from serving openly in the military.

“It’s a little too soon now to determine what the impact will be on the military,” said Steve Ralls, spokesperson for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which advocates on behalf of gay service members.

Ralls said SLDN is unsure whether the Lawrence decision could be used to overturn the anti-sodomy clause in the Uniformed Code of Military Justice. Military authorities continue to use the UCMJ anti-sodomy clause to prosecute gay service members.

Under the UCMJ, service members charged with sodomy are subject to a court martial, a discharge from the service and a possible jail term. Authorities have used sodomy charges to pressure service members into accepting discharges on grounds of homosexuality, SLDN has said.

“Repealing the military’s sodomy statute would not repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ Ralls said. “But it would remove one of the main roadblocks to repealing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”

Ralls noted that the DADT policy is based, in part, on the premise that gays cannot serve openly in the military because they would be identified as lawbreakers in connection with the sodomy prohibition. Ralls said SLDN expects service members charged with violating the sodomy clause to challenge the law’s constitutionality within the next few months, using the Lawrence decision as the basis for their challenge.

Courts historically have made exceptions for the military in court rulings that observers have dubbed as a “military deference,” Ralls said. He said it is unclear whether federal courts would uphold or strike down the UCMJ’s sodomy law in response to the Supreme Court’s Lawrence decision.

Maj. Michael Shavers, a Pentagon spokesperson, said the Defense Department was studying the Lawrence decision to determine how it will proceed with enforcing the UCMJ sodomy clause.

In another area of uncertainty, Patricia Logue, Lambda’s legal director, said gay civil rights attorneys were looking with great interest at the possible impact of the Lawrence decision on pending lawsuits in New Jersey and Massachusetts that are challenging those states’ marriage laws. Logue noted that the ...