WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court reopened a major gay rights issue yesterday, agreeing to decide a case that asks if it's unconstitutional for states to punish same-sex couples for having sex.
The ruling would apply to four states that ban homosexual sodomy and nine other states that ban the act for straight and gay couples alike.

The case involves a 1998 conviction in Texas of two men who were charged when cops burst into their home after receiving a false report of a robbery.

The court has struggled before with the issue. It ruled 5 to 4 in 1986 in Bowers vs. Hardwick that there is no right to private homosexual sex, upholding Georgia's sodomy ban.

The latest case gives the court a chance to overturn the Georgia decision and strike down the sodomy ban there and in Texas, Florida and 10 other states.

"I think most Americans would be shocked that there are still laws like this on the books," said the Texas men's lawyer, Ruth Harlow, legal director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York.

Richard Ackerman, an attorney for the California-based Pro-Family Law Center, said he worried that the case might energize efforts to recognize same-sex marriages.

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talking about discrimination... in the state in which I live (The Show Me state).... it is legal for individuals to engage in "sodomy" as long as they are of opposite genders...

My opinion is that whatever goes on behind closed doors between 2 (or more) consenting adults is their business and only needs to be decided by them. I am not at all comfortable with the government (or any other entity) deciding what should be done in the bedroom