Cowboy Love - So it turns out a certain district court judge was reading Anthony Kennedy's mind. Yet while the Lawrence decision may be couched in the controversial legal concept of a right to privacy (with all that Roe v. Wade baggage), in my humble opinion the justice who overturned Bowers had something more practical in mind.

Basically, Scalia was right when he said that the Supreme Court has now taken sides in the culture wars. Simply put, the Court majority definitively answered the long-standing question -- are homosexuals defined by what they do or by who they are? It has resoundingly declared the latter. We are people, not just sodomites, Q.E.D. The opposing view is thereby consigned to the trash heap of history. And now that we have the final answer, the whole rest of the gay civil rights agenda follows as a matter of simple logic.

"When sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring. The liberty protected by the Constitution allows homosexual persons the right to make this choice." Think of the difference between that and what could have been said: the "right of persons to choose homosexual conduct."

On the flip side, those who push the anti-gay position have been reduced, in the Court's official view, to mere intolerant bigots. The laws they push, denying rights to gays, are "born of animosity toward the class of persons affected," and therefore have "no rational relation to a legitimate governmental purpose."

Plenty of right-wingers will demean what SCOTUS has done. Conservative legal scholars will critique and criticize. But I believe it will actually be quite calming to our society to have this problem resolved. The great majority of people don't hate gays, and they don't really have a vested interest in seeing our lives criminalized. They're just happy someone (anyone!) has settled the dispute for them, so they can move on.

Not so fast, however -- we've only just begun. Let the gay-marriage wars commence. While I have intemperately declared that I would take up arms against the United States government should the Federal Marriage Amendment actually pass, I feel better and better that it won't happen. Even Walmart is coming around to gay rights. Prominent conservative thinkers are even waiving the white flag. So maybe even the gay marriage battle will more teacup than tempest. If that turns out to be the case, Justice Kennedy's wisely definitive ruling in Lawrence will be largely responsible.