High court backs homosexuality ban

From Wire Reports

WASHINGTON Handing the gay liberation movement a major defeat, the Supreme Court yesterday upheld the authority of the states to punish homosexual acts between consenting adults in the privacy of their homes.

On a 6 to 3 vote, the high court summarily affirmed the decision of a three-judge U.S. district court in Richmond, Va., that the constitutional right to privacy the foundation of recent abortion and contraception rulings does not encompass homosexual relationships.

The decision should have farreaching impact because the Virginia statute sustained has counterparts in 35 other states.

As a result of yesterday's ruling, the gay liberation movement is expected to shift its attack on antihomosexual laws from the courts to the state legislatures.

Yesterday's order affirmed the three-judge decision upholding the Virginia law making homosexual intercourse a crime punishable by up to five years in prison and a $1,000 fine.

The law had been challenged by two Richmond homosexuals, iden-

tified only as John Doe and Robert Roe, who contended it invaded their constitutional right to privacy and discriminated against them because it did not affect heterosexuals.

All states made homosexual acts a crime until 1961, when Illinois legalized such conduct between consenting adults in private.

Since then similar repeal measures have been passed in Connecticut, Colorado, Oregon, Hawaii, Delaware, Ohio, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, California, New Mexico, Maine and Arkansas.

The laws remain in force in the District of Columbia and on federal reservations. Repeal legislation is pending in Congress and in several state legislatures.

In other actions, the Supreme Court:

• Rejected claims that a lawyer has a right to a full hearing before he may be disciplined for professional misconduct.

Rejected without comment an Alabama police chief's claim that cities should be allowed to close movie theaters to stop them from showing pornographic movies.