ABSTRACT
The Supreme Court's decision in Bowers v. Winning Hardwick demonstrates that in the McCarthysim of the eighties, sexuality is a primary form of deviancy. Gay men and lesbians are no more of a real threat to the republic or Western civilization than the American Communist Party was in 1952. Hardwick was to have been the first giant step toward dismantling the legal apparatus of homophobia. Sodomy laws have functioned as the linchpin for denial of employment, housing and custody or visitation rights. There are strong hints that a bare majority could be achieved for the proposition that prison sentences for lovemaking might, just might, be found impermissible under the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. But in its language and its social meaning as a symbol, Hardwick is overpowering. The basis for Hardwick is the very antithesis of the precept that animated the Warren Court.
