{"id":51934,"date":"2016-09-30T11:27:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T16:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/content.findlaw-admin.com\/ability-legal\/supreme\/legal-commentary\/gay-rights-without-borders.html"},"modified":"2016-09-30T11:27:00","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T16:27:00","slug":"gay-rights-without-borders","status":"publish","type":"supreme","link":"https:\/\/supreme.findlaw.com\/legal-commentary\/gay-rights-without-borders.html","title":{"rendered":"Gay Rights Without Borders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n \n
\n
\n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n
<\/a><\/td>\n

Gay Rights Without Borders<\/h1><\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

By JOANNE MARINER<\/h2><\/a><\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

Monday, Feb. 16, 2004<\/td>\n\n <\/tr>\n <\/table>\n

\tTwenty-two years after the European Court of Human Rights overturned Northern Ireland’s ban on gay sodomy, the U.S. Supreme Court finally caught up. Not only did the Court strike down a state law that criminalized consensual homosexual activity, it even acknowledged the European precedents that had reached the same outcome first.<\/p>

\t<\/p>

\tIn what Justice Scalia, writing in dissent, condemned as “dangerous dicta,” the Supreme Court’s 2003 opinion in Lawrence v. Texas<\/i><\/a> made explicit reference to the rulings of courts outside the United States. Finding precedential support in a string of European cases, the Court noted that “other nations, too, have taken action consistent with an affirmation of the protected right of homosexual adults to engage in intimate, consensual conduct.”<\/p>

\tWhile correct in identifying the international trend, the Court, if anything, understated the extent of gay rights advances. As Yale Law School professor and human rights expert Harold Koh told a reporter for Legal Times<\/i>, the European Court of Human Rights is “eight cases beyond Lawrence<\/i>” in its gay rights jurisprudence. And it is not only Europe that is making legal progress in protecting gays and lesbians from societal discrimination. In a variety of international fora – from U.N. human rights bodies to South African courts – new ground is being broken on gay rights issues.<\/p>

\tA brief review of the most important of these rulings illustrates the broad scope of this international trend.<\/p> <\/b>

Sex, the Military, Adoption, Marriage and Pensions: International\/Foreign Decisions<\/p>