These laws are not enforced on straight couples, only gay couples--and that's one of the biggest problems I had with the laws.

This sentence puzzles me. Current laws regarding discrimination prohibit such unequal enforcement already, so a means for combatting this situation already exists. If your primary objection is to the unequal enforcement of the law, how is throwing the law out completely not overkill (throwing the baby out with the bath water, so to speak)? If your primary objection is to the law itself, how is unequal enforcement relevant at all?

At one point in your post you say that "incest is abuse of a position of authority" but you do not explain how this is the case. If we look at the case of incest between a brother and a sister, there is no position of authority. You yourself ask "What makes a particular sexual practice a vice?" but you do not explain how incest actually is, based on your worldview. You go on to say that "what is and is not acceptable sexually between a couple is defined by them and it is not necessary for a writer for a magazine [or blog, I might add]to be supportive of their choice" yet you condem incest in the same manner that Neumayr condems sodomy without really explaining how you have come to this conclusion.

I agree with you that the sodomy laws that some states have need repealing. As Dean Esmay points out in his post from yesterday, the number of states with such laws has been declining for years. Based on this trend it is reasonable to ask why the Supreme Court needed to get involved. Your logic, as expressed in the above post, leaves me wondering whether you are supporting a consistent worldview or simply trying to find justification for the Supreme Court's decision.

This was far less about the SC ruling than it is about the article that I was reading. My support for the SC ruling is that it was a defense of a minority against the tyranny of the majority--the laws are enforced only against gay couples, not straight ones. My opposition is mostly to the laws, but the unequal enforcement speaks directly to the constitutionality of the laws and is therefore relevant when viewing the laws as a whole. Notably, in this instance, though, it's not simply unequal enforcement, but the law in question targets gays in its entirety, not just a sexual act.

Consider this from William Buckley in reference to this case:

The Texas law says that gays cannot do what non-gays can do, and the facts of the matter weigh against Texas. Even if the prosecution was brought on by agents provocateurs furtively setting out to add one more right to the Bill of Rights, it's hard to defend what the Texans did. The only way to do it, of course, is to say that what Texas did/does is not the Supreme Court's business.

But this will prove hard, because in the Bowers case in 1986, the court acknowledged that it was the court's business, and now it will need to ask again whether due process, or equal protection, is involved. Justice Scalia will say it is not, and his opinion will be interesting, as his opinions are always interesting. It would be nice if Texas simply repealed the law and let Lambda's clients go back to their practices undisturbed.

The constitutionality of a law that is enforced unequally certainly is the courts business and our business as a whole.

You do make a good point when dealing with brother-sister incest or similar situations and I'll need to think further about it before completing my reply. I admit that my world view does not allow for absolutely any expression to be protected but does allow for thoughtful reflection on why the laws and traditions exist and what effect they truly have.

My world view also allows a reasonable level of space for communities to decide their own standards. But say a community in South Carolina votes to allow slaves. Do I have to respect the right of that state? No, I don't think I do. That's obviously an exaggeration, but when a community makes it illegal for a gay couple to consummate their relationship while allowing a straight couple to they've certainly decided to minimize the rights of a certain class of people.

Understand, the Texas law was directed at what it termed "deviate sex"--this was defined as oral or anal intercourse between members of the same sex. Throwing out the law was the only proper decision. I'm guessing that if the law had targeted straights as well as gays, it would not have been struck down; the lawyers argued that the law violated the necessity for equal protection under law; I agree.

I don't think I really need to find a justification for the SC decision--it would have been damned hard for Texas to prove that their law was unequal yet protected the public interest. That argument would be based on a disapproval of homosexual behavior--an argument that the court was sure disagree with.

I might have to find justification for my opposition to incest of certain kinds, although I'm not terribly inclined to do so.

This links to Buckley's opinion.
This links to a Slate article that discusses the law in question.
This links to a Texas Triangle article about the law and the case before the SC.

The Texas law says that gays cannot do what non-gays can do

This is an interesting point - intersting in that this is the first time that I had heard about this facet of the law. None of the things that I have read on the issue have noted this, at least not so that I had become aware of it. My understanding, which was obviously wrong, was that the law restricted specific sexual acts regardless of whether the participants were of the same sex or of different sexes. Your statement that "the laws are enforced only against gay couples, not straight ones" suggests that the law was applicable to both straight and gay couples. The fact that a law is not enforced against those to which it does not apply is a non-issue. This leads me to wonder why this particular facet of the law seems to have slipped past me in my reading. You obviously have done more research on the issue, but it seems to me to be a pretty important fact, not one that I would have missed if it were made obvious. Based on the various discussions that I have read, I have the feeling that there were others with the same misunderstanding that I have had. I do have a couple of questions, still.

the unequal enforcement speaks directly to the constitutionality of the laws and is therefore relevant when viewing the laws as a whole

Why do you feel that unequal enforcement of a law speaks to the constitutionality? Let's take murder, for example. If a racist cop in a small town chooses to only investigate a murder when the deceased is white, refusing to investigate when the deceased is black, there is no constitutional question. Throwing out the laws against murder would not, in any way, solve the problem.

when a community makes it illegal for a gay couple to consummate their relationship while allowing a straight couple to they've certainly decided to minimize the rights of a certain class of people.

No argument here - see my earlier confusion.

I might have to find justification for my opposition to incest of certain kinds, although I'm not terribly inclined to do so.

I find this comment interesting, considering you as the source. You and I have talked at length about the hypocrisy that can occur when people base their opinions on an inconsistent worldview. Take my opposition to the legalization of drugs. My libertarian views on personal freedom should lead me to the conclusion that drugs should be legal. My support of legalized alcahol consumption is consistent with this view. My disdain for drugs, we both know, is based on my family's history with drug abuse. I acknowledge that my emotional stance is inconsistent with my intellectual stance, and I act accordingly. By your own admission, there is the possibility that your worldview on consensual sex may have a hole in it. I would think that solidifying your position would be a the kind of mental exercise that you would enjoy.

You're confusion stems from the fact that I'm not differentiating terribly between my opposition to this law in particular and sodomy laws in general. I'm opposed to sodomy laws in general and hope that the states continue to strike them down without the Supreme Court stepping in. In fact, I would have rather that Texas legislators had realized what was going on and moved to change the laws themselves rather than letting the court handle it.

I, like you and Dean, don't like the fact that the courts have stepped beyond interpreting laws to making laws. I simply don't think that they've done that in this case. The court has consistently recognized the necessity for equal protection and enforcement. You're right to make the murder comparison, though, and I'll have to answer that later.

Right now, I'm out the door and heading back down to Colorado Springs to deal with the happy family. I do look forward to resuming this conversation, though.

Lastly, my reluctance to deal with the incest issue is probably more due to my personal animosity toward the concept and the distraction of current personal events. You're right, though: consistency of world view is important to me, and I probably should give it more consideration in this case.

Overall, I'd have to say that the discussion is pretty academic. We both agree that 1) the current trend towards the use of the Supreme Court to circumvent the legislative proces is problematic, 2) that homosexuals have legitimat complaints about some of their restricted rights, and 3) that there is a lot of hypocrisy in the world coming from people who have never really taken the time to analyze their own beliefs and to ask themselves why it is that they believe what they believe. Of course, it ins't like we haven't talked about these things before!