Opinion ID: 76424
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fundamental Right to Private Sexual Intimacy

Text: 28 Laws that burden the exercise of a fundamental right require strict scrutiny and are sustained only if narrowly tailored to further a compelling government interest. See, e.g., Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U.S. 374, 388, 98 S.Ct. 673, 682, 54 L.Ed.2d 618 (1978); Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 634, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 1331, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969). Appellants argue that the Supreme Court's recent decision in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 123 S.Ct. 2472, 156 L.Ed.2d 508 (2003), which struck down Texas's sodomy statute, identified a hitherto unarticulated fundamental right to private sexual intimacy. They contend that the Florida statute, by disallowing adoption to any individual who chooses to engage in homosexual conduct, impermissibly burdens the exercise of this right. 29 We begin with the threshold question of whether Lawrence identified a new fundamental right to private sexual intimacy. Lawrence 's holding was that substantive due process does not permit a state to impose a criminal prohibition on private consensual homosexual conduct. The effect of this holding was to establish a greater respect than previously existed in the law for the right of consenting adults to engage in private sexual conduct. 123 S.Ct. at 2478. Nowhere, however, did the Court characterize this right as fundamental. Cf. id. at 2488 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (observing that nowhere does the Court's opinion declare that homosexual sodomy is a `fundamental right' under the Due Process Clause). Nor did the Court locate this right directly in the Constitution, but instead treated it as the by-product of several different constitutional principles and liberty interests. 13 30 We are particularly hesitant to infer a new fundamental liberty interest from an opinion whose language and reasoning are inconsistent with standard fundamental-rights analysis. The Court has noted that it must exercise the utmost care whenever [it is] asked to break new ground in the field of fundamental rights, Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 720, 117 S.Ct. 2258, 2268, 138 L.Ed.2d 772 (1997) (citation omitted), which is precisely what the Lawrence petitioners and their amici curiae had asked the Court to do. 14 That the Court declined the invitation is apparent from the absence of the two primary features of fundamental-rights analysis in its opinion. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. at 720, 117 S.Ct. at 2268. First, the Lawrence opinion contains virtually no inquiry into the question of whether the petitioners' asserted right is one of those fundamental rights and liberties which are, objectively, deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty, such that neither liberty nor justice would exist if they were sacrificed. Id. at 720-21, 117 S.Ct. at 2268 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). 15 Second, the opinion notably never provides the `careful description' of the asserted fundamental liberty interest that is to accompany fundamental-rights analysis. Id. at 721, 117 S.Ct. at 2268 (citation omitted); see also Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 302, 113 S.Ct. 1439, 1447, 123 L.Ed.2d 1 (1993) (`Substantive due process' analysis must begin with a careful description of the asserted right....). Rather, the constitutional liberty interests on which the Court relied were invoked, not with careful description, but with sweeping generality. See, e.g., Lawrence, 123 S.Ct. at 2475 (Liberty protects the person from unwarranted government intrusions into a dwelling or other private places.); id. (The instant case involves liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions.); id. at 2484 ([T]here is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter.) (citation omitted). Most significant, however, is the fact that the Lawrence Court never applied strict scrutiny, the proper standard when fundamental rights are implicated, but instead invalidated the Texas statute on rational-basis grounds, holding that it furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual. Id. at 2484; see also id. at 2488 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (observing that the majority opinion did not subject the Texas law to the standard of review that would be appropriate (strict scrutiny) if homosexual sodomy were a `fundamental right'). 31 We conclude that it is a strained and ultimately incorrect reading of Lawrence to interpret it to announce a new fundamental right. Accordingly, we need not resolve the second prong of appellants' fundamental-rights argument: whether exclusion from the statutory privilege of adoption because of appellants' sexual conduct creates an impermissible burden on the exercise of their asserted right to private sexual intimacy. Cf. Lyng v. Castillo, 477 U.S. 635, 638, 106 S.Ct. 2727, 2729, 91 L.Ed.2d 527 (1986) (only classifications that `directly and substantially' interfere with a fundamental right constitute an impermissible burden) (citation omitted). 32 Moreover, the holding of Lawrence does not control the present case. Apart from the shared homosexuality component, there are marked differences in the facts of the two cases. The Court itself stressed the limited factual situation it was addressing in Lawrence : 33 The present case does not involve minors. It does not involve persons who might be injured or coerced or who are situated in relationships where consent might not easily be refused. It does not involve public conduct or prostitution. It does not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter. The case does involve two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle. 34 Lawrence, 123 S.Ct. at 2484. Here, the involved actors are not only consenting adults, but minors as well. The relevant state action is not criminal prohibition, but grant of a statutory privilege. And the asserted liberty interest is not the negative right to engage in private conduct without facing criminal sanctions, but the affirmative right to receive official and public recognition. Hence, we conclude that the Lawrence decision cannot be extrapolated to create a right to adopt for homosexual persons.