Court Opinion

ID: 5533331
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-01-10 18:14:23.415778+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:34:38.485403
License: Public Domain

Jasen, J.
(concurring in result). While I cannot accept the majority’s premise that the so-called “penumbral” right to privacy which first appeared in Griswold v Connecticut (381 US 479) should be extended to encompass and protect any and all types of consensual sexual behavior in private, I nonetheless concur in result herein for I can discern no rational basis upon which the Legislature could have decided to freely allow the conduct in issue among married people and to make identical conduct criminal among those for whom that estate is undesirable or unattainable.
I hasten to add that, in my opinion, the Legislature does have the power to make moral judgments. However, that legislative power is, as all others are, limited by the supervening requirement that it be exercised with the requisite evenhandedness. Here, it was not.