Opinion ID: 2011334
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: The Implications, If Any, of Bowers v. Hardwick for Equal Protection Analysis

Text: Before considering whether any combination of factors, if satisfied, would require intensive judicial scrutiny of the prohibition against homosexual marriage, it is necessary to note that four federal courts of appeals have ruledprimarily by reference to the Supreme Court's due process decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, supra that homosexuals do not comprise a suspect or quasi-suspect class. See High Tech Gays v. Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office, 895 F.2d 563, 570-73 (9th Cir.1990); Ben-Shalom v. Marsh, 881 F.2d 454, 564-66 (7th Cir. 1989); Woodward v. United States, 871 F.2d 1068, 1076 (Fed.Cir.1989); Padula v. Webster, 261 U.S.App.D.C. 365, 370-72, 822 F.2d 97, 102-04 (1987). In Padula, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the government in appellant's suit claiming the FBI had violated the equal protection clause by refusing to hire appellant because she was a homosexual. The court concluded that homosexuals did not comprise a class deserving intensive scrutiny because the Supreme Court, in Hardwick, had approved state laws criminalizing homosexual conduct, and thereby implicitly had precluded any special protection of homosexuals. If the Court [in Hardwick ] was unwilling to object to state laws that criminalize the behavior that defines the class, it is hardly open to a lower court to conclude that state sponsored discrimination against the class is invidious. Id. at 371, 822 F.2d at 103 (emphasis added); see Dronenburg v. Zech, 239 U.S.App.D.C. 229, 238-39, 741 F.2d 1388, 1397-98 (1984) (private, consensual, homosexual conduct is not constitutionally protected). Padula 's premisethat homosexual behavior... defines the class, id. appears facially overboard; homosexuals as a class are defined by reference to sexual orientation, which does not necessarily imply particular conduct, even in marriage. See supra note 33; see generally Cass R. Sunstein, Sexual Orientation and the Constitution: A Note on the Relationship Between Due Process and Equal Protection, 55 U.CHI.L.REV. 1161, 1178 n. 85 (1988). As the D.C. Circuit itself had noted earlier, [ Hardwick ] did not reach the difficult issue of whether an agency of the federal government can discriminate against individuals merely because of sexual orientation.  Doe v. Casey, 254 U.S.App. D.C. 282, 296, 796 F.2d 1508, 1522 (1986) (CIA employee alleged he was dismissed because of homosexual orientation, and court concluded that if, indeed, CIA action reflected policy of terminating employment of all homosexuals, CIA would have to justify why this policy was necessary in interests of United States). [46] It is important to note, however, that in Padula itself, plaintiff-appellant herself rejected the conduct/orientation distinction, premising her constitutional argument on a definition of homosexuals as persons who engage in homosexual conduct. 261 U.S.App.D.C. at 370, 822 F.2d at 102. The court accordingly balked at finding invidious discrimination against a class of persons who, by definition, engaged in conduct that, consistent with the Constitution, could be criminalized. Three other federal circuits followed suit. In Woodward v. United States , the court sustained dismissal of a naval reserve officer from active duty on the ground that he was an admitted homosexual. In rejecting the claims that the Navy's action violated Woodward's constitutional right to privacy, as well as his right to equal protection of the laws, the court relied on Hardwick. In holding that homosexuals were not members of a suspect or quasi-suspect class, the court merely asserted the legislative factwithout citing any authoritythat [m]embers of recognized suspect or quasi-suspect classes, e.g., blacks or women, exhibit immutable characteristics whereas homosexuality is primarily behavioral in nature. Woodward, 871 F.2d at 1076. Similarly, in Ben-Shalom v. Marsh , the court of appeals, reversing the district court, upheld the Army's refusal to reenlist an admitted lesbian. Relying on Hardwick, the court concluded that, [if] homosexual conduct may constitutionally be criminalized, then homosexuals do not constitute a suspect or quasi-suspect class entitled to greater than rational basis scrutiny for equal protection purposes. Ben-Shalom, 881 F.2d at 464 (footnote omitted). The court also appeared to be influenced by the fact that it had been asked to overturn an Army regulation, which the court believed would be an unjustified intrusion into military affairs. See id. at 465. The court added that homosexuals are proving that they are not without growing political power. Id. at 466. Finally, in High Tech Gays v. Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office , a class action brought by homosexual applicants for employment by the Defense Department, the court of appeals, reversing the district court, rejected plaintiffs' arguments that the Department's refusal to grant security clearances to known or suspected gay or lesbian applicants violated the equal protection clause. The court relied on Hardwick, Ben-Shalom, and Padula and, in particular, asserted as legislative factwithout citing any authoritythat [h]omosexuality is not an immutable characteristic; it is behavioral and hence is fundamentally different from traits such as race, gender, or alienage, which define already existing suspect and quasi-suspect classes. High Tech Gays, 895 F.2d at 573. The court also noted that homosexuals are not without political power. Id. at 574. It is critical to understanding the equal protection issue for us to recognize, very frankly, that even if homosexuals as a class could be defined, at least in part, by reference to homosexual conduct, the federal courts in Padula, Woodward, Ben-Shalom, and High Tech Gays as elaborated below all misapplied Hardwick, a due process case in which the Supreme Court expressly noted it was not addressing equal protection issues. See Hardwick, 478 U.S. at 196 n. 8, 106 S.Ct. at 2847 n. 8 (Respondent does not defend the judgment below based on the Ninth Amendment, the Equal Protection Clauses or the Eighth Amendment.). Furthermore, two of these courts, in Woodward and High Tech Gays apparently recognizing that Hardwick was not dispositiveapplied equal protection analysis by merely asserting that homosexuality is not immutable, entirely ignoring a substantial body of scientific research to the contrary. See infra note 49. I have considerable respect for the federal courts that issued these decisions, but this court owes them no deference, and we would abandon our judicial review responsibility if we accepted what, in my view, is critically flawed reasoning. The discussion above in Part V., concluding that same-sex marriage is not a fundamental right under the due process clause, made clear that, to the extent the due process clause protects substantive rights, it characteristically upholds tradition. As Professor Cass R. Sunstein has noted: From its inception, the Due Process Clause has been interpreted largely (though not exclusively) to protect traditional practices against short-run departures. The clause has therefore been associated with a particular conception of judicial review, one that sees the courts as safeguards against novel developments brought about by temporary majorities who are insufficiently sensitive to the claims of history. Sunstein, supra, 55 U.CHI.L.REV. at 1163. Professor Sunstein then stressed that, whereas the due process clause reinforces tradition, the equal protection clause is forward-looking; it is intended to invalidate traditions, however longstanding, that become invidiously discriminatory as times change and disadvantaged groups call attention to their treatment. The Equal Protection Clause ... has been understood as an attempt to protect disadvantaged groups from discriminatory practices, however deeply engrained and longstanding. The Due Process Clause often looks backward; it is highly relevant to the Due Process issue whether an existing or time-honored convention, described at the appropriate level of generality, is violated by the practice under attack. By contrast, the Equal Protection Clause looks forward, serving to invalidate practices that were widespread at the time of its ratification and that were expected to endure. The two clauses therefore operate along different tracks. Id. Professor Sunstein accordingly concluded that, although Hardwick sustained, against due process clause attack, a statute criminalizing consensual sodomy as applied to homosexuals, that ruling does not necessarily foreclose a discrimination claim by homosexuals who contend that the equal protection clause entitles them to the same treatment that heterosexuals receive. See id. at 1163-64; Watkins v. United States Army, 875 F.2d 699, 711, 716-20 (9th Cir.1989) (en banc) (Norris, J., concurring). As applied in this case, Sunstein's analysis suggests that, even though Hardwick says the state can outlaw consensual sodomy between homosexuals without violating the due process clause, this does not necessarily mean the state can deny homosexual couples the right to marry, while allowing heterosexual couples to do so, without violating the equal protection clause. [47] In concluding that homosexuals did not have a privacy right to engage in sodomy protected by the due process clause, Hardwick did not decide whether the state constitutionally could deny consenting heterosexuals the same right, see id., 478 U.S. at 188 n. 2, 106 S.Ct. at 2842 n. 2, although it is hard to imagine that the Court would find heterosexual sodomy deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition, Moore, 431 U.S. at 503, 97 S.Ct. at 1938, and thus constitutionally protected by the due process clause. See Watkins, 875 F.2d at 717-718 (Norris, J., concurring). If the state can deny that right to heterosexuals and homosexuals alike by criminalizing consensual sodomy by everyone, consistent with due process, based on a tradition of criminal sodomy statutes that have drawn no distinction between homosexual and heterosexual sodomy, see Watkins, 875 F.2d at 718 (Norris, J., concurring), then such conduct provides no basis by itself for denying marriage to homosexual couples without also denying, if not revoking, that right for all heterosexual couples who intend, or are found, to practice consensual sodomy. If, on the other hand, the state cannot ban sodomy for consenting heterosexual couples, consistent with their constitutional right to privacy, then it is not readily apparent why the state could lawfully discriminate against homosexual couples, presumed to be engaging in unlawful consensual sodomy, by denying them a formal status, marriage, that heterosexual couples use to legitimize their own consensual sodomy (among other needs). See id.; C.R. Sunstein, supra, 55 U.CHI. L.REV. at 1169-70. Lurking in this analysis is a subissue: the assumption that the state, despite Hardwick, cannot constitutionally prohibit consensual heterosexual sodomy by a married couple, consistent with the constitutional right to privacy, does not necessarily mean the state cannot constitutionally prohibit sodomy by a consenting unmarried heterosexual couple, just as the state criminalizes fornication. See, e.g., D.C.Code § 22-1002 (1989 Repl.) (fornication). On that assumption, the question then becomes: whether same-sex couples (presumed for this purpose to be a constitutionally protected class) can use the equal protection clause to claim a constitutional right to marryabsent a compelling or substantially state interest to the contrary when they admittedly engage in conduct, consensual sodomy, which the state can lawfully proscribe for a large measure of the heterosexual population, namely all unmarried opposite-sex couples. The answer, I believe, is yes; equal protection is available. In the first place, Hardwick, in dealing only with consensual homosexual sodomy, 478 U.S. at 188 n. 2, 106 S.Ct. at 2842 n. 2, arguably drew the line between homosexual and heterosexual sodomy, not between unmarried and married conduct. But, even if Hardwick left room for constitutionally protecting consensual sodomy in marriage while permitting criminal penalties for consensual sodomy outside marriage, that would only reenforce appellants' equal protection argument here. Heterosexual couples could validate their conduct and escape criminal prosecution, while attending to their other physical, emotional, and spiritual needs, by entering a marriage; homosexual couples engaging in the same conduct, and having the same other needs, could not. This difference arguably amounts to invidious discrimination because the state would be withholding from homosexual couples a status that heterosexual couples could elect to legitimize for themselves the very same conductto the point of curing otherwise criminal conductthat homosexual couples would be helpless to legitimize. If marriage can make behavior acceptableand constitutionally protectablethat would otherwise be unacceptable and unprotectable, this means that marriage can legitimize behavior that may be contextually, but not inherently, unacceptable. If, therefore, marriage (under the assumptions considered here) is the only variable that distinguishes between acceptable and unacceptable consensual sodomy, then a law permitting marriage only between opposite-sex couples would appear to discriminate invidiously against members of the only class of unmarried, unrelated, adult coupleshomosexual coupleswho are disqualified from legitimizing behavior, and from attending to other important needs, that similarly situated heterosexual couples can lawfully arrange to undertake and satisfy.