Supreme Court makes ruling in many historic cases at end of term

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled last week on two historic civil rights cases -- one striking down bans on what some states have called deviate sex acts and the other mandating public libraries make it harder for Internet surfers to look at pornography or risk losing government funding.\nJustices ruled Thursday that what gay men and women do in the privacy of their bedrooms is their business and not the government's. The court also ruled June 23 that the federal government can withhold money from libraries that won't install blocking devices for pornography.\nThese rulings also coincided with Tuesday's decision by the Supreme Court that affirmative action is constitutional for processes like college-admissions policies.\nGay rights advocates called Thursday's ruling, by a 6-3 vote, the most important legal advance ever for gay people in the United States.\nTwo gay men arrested after police walked in on them having sex "are entitled to respect for their private lives," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote. "The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime."\nThe court voted to strike down a Texas law that made homosexual sex a crime. The law allows police to arrest gays for oral or anal sex, conduct that would be legal for heterosexuals.\nOf the 13 states with sodomy laws, four -- Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri -- prohibit oral and anal sex between same-sex couples. The other nine ban consensual sodomy for everyone: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia.\nThe Supreme Court also ruled June 23 that public libraries must make it harder for Internet surfers to look at pornography -- or they will lose government funding.\nJustices ruled libraries had complained that the law turned them into censors, but they lost their First Amendment challenge.\nMore than 14 million people a year use public library computers, including many children, and the court said patrons of all ages were being exposed to unseemly sex sites on the Web.\nThe 6-3 ruling leaves libraries scrambling to decide whether to comply with the law, which had been struck down last year by a three-judge panel.\nLibraries had argued that the technology blocks a vast amount of valuable information about science, medicine and other topics along with dirty pictures. Still, those that buck Congress to avoid that will face a hefty penalty; libraries have received about $1 billion since 1999 in technology subsidies.\n"It's biggest impact is going to be in rural communities with small libraries and urban communities with people who cannot afford to have their own computers at home," said Tulane constitutional law professor M. David Gelfand.\nAndra Addison, spokeswoman for Seattle Public Library, said the library has already had to scale back.\n"We've had cut after cut after cut. So $200,000 out of our budget may not seem significant, but with the budget hits we've had to take, that is really is significant. It's really tough," Addison said.\nShe said their system has some filters now but only on computers used by children.\nSome library systems, like the Los Angeles city library, already turn down federal funds. Others, like the Seattle system, receive several hundred thousand dollars a year.\nFour justices said the law was constitutional, and two others said it was allowable as long as libraries disable the filters for adult patrons who ask. The law does not specifically require the disabling.\nJudith Krug, with the American Library Association, said patrons may be embarrassed to request the filter change. "The fact that the librarian can flick a switch isn't going to change the stigma that's attached to it," she said.\nChief Justice William H. Rehnquist said the Constitution "does not guarantee the right to acquire information at a public library without any risk of embarrassment."\nRehnquist's opinion was joined by Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen Breyer agreed with the outcome.