I'm surprised this topic has not been brought up yet. In Lawrence v. Texas, a majority of the Supreme Court has found in the Constitution a right for gays to have consensual sex.
This ruling was not the srprrise to me that it seemed to be to the media. I do however, find the Court's reasoning curious. Time and time again when the Court can not put their finger on a specifically enumerated constitution right, they always fall back on the old standby, the "Right to Privacy". This right is not listed in the constitution, but rather is derived from the Right to Liberty in a legendary colossal stretch from a law review article which I believe demonstrates more why there should be a right to privacy rather than if there is a right to privacy in the constitution. You can read it here if you have trouble sleeping.
This "right" has been used to justify Roe v. Wade and of course, Lawrence v. Texas, the recent sodomy law case. I anticipate it will also be used to strike down the honerous Patriot Act. (Now, I'm a conservative, but I have to admit Ashcroft just has not forgiven the human race since he lost his Senate election to a dead man, and neither would I.)
I believe a right of privacy is an important right, but if the Court is going to rely on it as a fallback justification, I say we amend the constitution to include a direct Right of Privacy or "the right to be let alone". Then, it won't be an issue and Justice Scalia and Thomas will have nothing to say about it. This will of course never happen because it poses two extreme risks: (1) an admission that a right of privacy does not exist and (2) fallout if the amendment does not pass.
As I said before, I'm a conservative, but where I am liberal is the right for adults to engage in adult relationships. I believe gays should marry. It would definately cut down on the population boom, and makes for great lesbian porno.
What I don't like is when the Court goes too far in its activism. The Supreme Court, relying on the Lawrence ruling, has vacated the sentence of a gay teen and has requested that the Kansas Court revisit the sentence to determine if it is discriminatory to gay people. This doesn't make sense because the Lawrence ruling is a right of privacy case, and only O'Conner stated that it violated the equal protection clause. Clearly the Limon case and the Lawrence case violate the equal protect clause, but the Court does not want to say that because a state could fashion a law that was clearly anti-gay but applied equally to all persons, as in Bowers v. Hardwick in Georgia. This would undermine their "agenda" as Scalia has stated in his blistering and somewhat juvenile dissent. My problem with "revisting" the Limon case is that he was an adult (albeit a teenager) and the person he committed the sex act with was a minor, and thus a crime of statutory rape was commited. This is not the same as two adults going at it when cops walk in. The rapist deserves to rot in jail. The issue was the penalty was more severe for a same sex crime. I say increase the opposite sex penalty. This is a legitimate issue but one that has nothing to do with the Court's decision in Lawrence.
Now we have Senatory Frist who wants pass an amendment defining marriages as a legal union between two members of the opposite sex.
The media is treating this as a "Republican" idea. But lest ye forget, it was that hypocrate Clinton who sold out his constituency on the eve of the 1996 election and quietly signed the first federal law to define marriage officially as a "union between one man and one woman."
It's funny how some liberal groups, like gays, were so blinded by their love of Clinton that their single issue, the right to marry a same sex partner, wihch is banned under Federal law by Clinton, didn't change their opinion of him one bit. (Poor minorities also got a royal screwing under the Welfare Reform act, too, which if passed under a Republican Presidency would have been considered racism, but under Clinton was considered an "incentive" to leave the welfare system. But, I digress.)
I say we call the law the Clinton Amendment, since he could rightly be considered the "pioneer" of the gay marriage ban movement.