POLITICS: Why Advancing Gay Rights is All About Good Timing

But that’s the thing about timing and the Supreme Court—Hardwick’s challenge came too early and Justice Powell’s change of heart came too late. Bowers was a major blow to the gay rights movement—“a sign that the Court, and, by extension, society, did not accept homosexuals.” How could it be otherwise if their expression of love and sexuality was against the law? Criticism rained down on the court from legal scholars including Richard Posner and Michael Sandel. As Yale law professor and Slate contributor William Eskridge writes, “a decision that was premature in 1986 swiftly became an embarrassment.” Yet it took the court 17* years to correct its error, in Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 ruling that overturned Bowers and finally struck down state sodomy prohibitions.

slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/supreme_court_dispatches/2012/10/the_supreme_court_s_terrible_decision_in_bowers_v_hardwick_was_a_product.html