Sex Appealed

When Deputy Joseph Richard Quinn and three other veteran Harris County, Texas, sheriff's deputies with guns drawn, burst into an apartment the night of September 17, 1998, searching for a black male with a gun, their shocking discovery in the back bedroom triggered a chain of events resulting in a 2003 U. S. Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas that state laws criminalizing consensual, adult sodomy are unconstitutional. The landmark Lawrence ruling is the trigger event kicking away roadblocks to gay marriage. Lawrence remains in headlines today, in a larger cultural war, over adoption, employee benefits, the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, and related issues of judicial activism.