“Is Homosexual A Crime?”

The US Federal Supreme Court decided to work on an important trial to judge whether the homosexual activity, which had been stipulated as a crime so far, was unlawful or not. The New York Times reported on the 4th that depend on the result of the trial of the Supreme Court, it would create a big wave in American society in general.

The US Federal Supreme Court accepted two homosexual males` appeal and decided to examine whether the State Law of Texas, which punishes any anomalous sexual conduct using the mouth and the anus with homosexual partner, was against the Constitution or not. In addition to that, it announced that it would also deal with whether it would reverse the decision of constitutionality by the Federal Supreme Court in 1986 about similar issues.

The Texas Prosecutor got a report from a residence and arrested two males ‘having sex,’ and charged 200 dollars fine each. The charge was the violation of the ‘Sodomy Law.’ The ‘Sodomy Law’ is being operated in 13 States including Texas.

However, these two males appealed to the Constitution saying that the ‘Sodomy Law’ was violating the protection of the personal life and right to be equal, which was guaranteed in the Constitution. Their reasoning is that it is not right to see the homosexual conduct is unlawful while they consider sex between male-female couple is lawful.

Due to this decision by the Federal Supreme Court, the validity of the 1986 ruling by the Supreme Court, which was Constitutional by a slim margin (5 to 4), will be watched once again.

The New York Times reported that, however, more than that, the ‘inheritance’ of the Judge Louis Powell (1907~1998), who expressed the majority opinion that time, was being focused. The inheritance he left was the lesson about the relationship between a Judge`s personal experience and a decision.

The Judge Powell grumbled during the trial that time, “I`ve never seen a gay in my life.”

However, he confessed at his speech to the law student of the New York University Law School in 1990, “I reexamined (the decision in 1986), but I made a mistake, and I regret that decision.”

He also made a progressive decision like, “We should allow the abortion,” and his personal experience was behind it at that time, too. A woman he knew ghastly died while trying abortion by herself in a poor condition because the abortion was illegal. After that, he insisted, “Justice should be decided by our needs,” and he practiced it.

The New York Times reported that in legal circles also agreed on, “We must admit that a Judge`s individual sex, background, and experiences in life affect the decision consciously or unconsciously,” upon this opportunity of Judge Powell`s story.

This newspaper added, therefore, “A Judge must not be confident that he is neutral from his past experience, and more than that, it gives us a very important lesson how much we need to be careful to appoint a Judge.”

Hye-Yoon Park parkhyey@donga.com