Another Victory for Gay Rights

Having put one toe in the water last week on behalf of gay rights, the U.S. Supreme Court put in a second on Monday. The justices let stand without comment a lower court ruling that Texas A&M; University must recognize a gay student group.

As they did last week, the justices apparently based their decision on the university’s abridgment of the students’ First Amendment rights to speak and associate freely. “Apparently,” because no opinion was issued, and the vote was not announced. The federal appeals court that ruled in favor of the students based its decision on First Amendment grounds, and the Supreme Court seems to have accepted that line of thought.

The result is an important judicial victory for homosexual rights. In addition to its direct effect on behalf of gay students’ organizations, the decision indicates that the justices might be inclined to a favorable consideration of the gay-rights issue on its own merits--an issue that they have yet to address.

Perhaps they cannot muster enough votes to speak out directly on homosexuality, but they do have enough to grant the same result based on the broader First Amendment issues. We’re happy for the result, which marked the second time in a week that the court did something for homosexuals--a group that it had not aided before.

But we wish that the court in one of these terms would confront the central issue--gay rights--and rule all discrimination based on sexual preference to be illegal.