Editors' Note

WHEN THE Journal of the History of Sexuality staff originally decided to publish a special issue on "Sexuality and Politics since 1945," political struggles related to sex were erupting across the United States, Western Europe, and the nations of the former British Empire. Almost weekly, newspaper headlines announced the results of referenda on abortion or civil rights for homosexuals, the debates within various religious traditions about their teachings on sexual practices, and the creation of coalitions to agitate for further changes in laws and attitudes concerning sexuality. The events of September 11, 2001, temporarily removed coverage of such controversies from the front pages of American papers, but now, as the special issue goes to the printer, these cultural and political conflicts have returned to center stage.

A few examples from recent days and months demonstrate the current centrality of matters sexual in the politics of the Anglophone world. In Lawrence v. Texas, a case that gay activists call "the most significant ruling ever for lesbian and gay Americans' civil rights," the U.S. Supreme Court on June 26, 2003, struck down the Texas law that criminalized sodomy and oral sex for same-sex couples.¹ The decision overturned the Court's 1986 ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick that had allowed states to legislate against private sexual behavior. In a ringing assertion of the rights of gays and lesbians, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, insisted upon "respect for their private lives." "The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime," he wrote.² The Court, like American society, was deeply divided on the case. Justice Antonin Scalia, in an unusual move, insisted upon reading his dissent from the bench. In words that were strangely personal and bitter, he proclaimed that "the court has taken sides in the culture war."³

The "culture war" intensified during the period when the arguments in the case were being presented to the Court. Activists of many political persuasions jumped into the debate. One of the most widely publicized salvos came from Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania), the third-ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate, who trumpeted angrily, "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything." Although same-sex sexuality bore the major brunt of his denunciation, Santorum went on to deny the validity of Constitutional protections for anything other than marital, procreative sex. He rejected the long line of legal arguments that guarantee the right of couples to obtain contraceptive information and devices and underpin the reasoning of the prochoice majority in Roe v. Wade. "It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist, in my opinion, in the United States Constitution," he insisted.⁴

A cascade of voices condemned Santorum's remarks. Some Democratic Party leaders rebuked him for his insensitivity and prejudice, and a number of his Republican colleagues took pains to distance themselves from his views. Groups of gay activists attempted to push the matter further. Sensing a parallel to Trent Lott's antiblack, prosegregationist statements, which resulted in his ouster from his position as Republican Senate leader, groups such as the Human Rights Campaign and the Center for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights called for Santorum to step down.⁵ Religious conservatives, most notably the Reverend Dr. James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, rallied the faithful to his support.⁶ Santorum weathered the storm and undoubtedly emerged from this scuffle in the cultural wars with his campaign coffers dramatically enhanced. The clear moral of the episode is that sexual politics are extremely divisive.

Some of the same protagonists appeared in another contretemps, this one concerning the commemoration of Gay Pride Month by employees within...