Page:Jegley v. Picado, 349 Ark. 600 (2002).pdf/7

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accomplishment of the purpose, and not unduly oppressive upon individuals; the police power can only be exercised to suppress, restrain, or regulate the liberty of individual action, when such action is injurious to the public welfare.

1. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—EQUAL PROTECTION—BARE DESIRE TO HARM POLITICALLY UNPOPULAR GROUP CANNOT CONSTITUTE LEGITIMATE GOVERNMENTAL INTEREST.—If the constitutional conception of "equal protection of the laws" means anything, it must at the very least mean that a bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate governmental interest; government cannot avoid the strictures of equal protection simply by deferring to the wishes or objections of some fraction of the body politic.
2. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—EQUAL PROTECTION—POLICE POWER MAY NOT BE USED TO ENFORCE MAJORITY MORALITY ON PERSONS WHOSE CONDUCT DOES NOT HARM OTHERS.—The supreme court concluded that the police power may not be used to enforce a majority morality on persons whose conduct does not harm others; the Arkansas Equal Rights Amendment serves to protect minorities at the hands of majorities; the State has a clear and proper role to protect the public from offensive displays of sexual behavior, to protect people from forcible sexual contact, and to protect minors from sexual abuse by adults; however, criminal statutes, including those proscribing indecent exposure, rape, statutory rape, and the like, are in existence to protect the public from precisely such harms.
3. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW—EQUAL PROTECTION—APPELLANT FAILED TO OFFER SUFFICIENT REASONING TO SHOW THAT PUBLIC MORALITY JUSTIFIED PROHIBITION OF SAME-SEX SODOMY.—Appellant failed to offer sufficient reasoning to show that notions of a public morality justify the prohibition of consensual, private intimate behavior between persons of the same sex in the name of the public interest; there was no contention that same-sex sodomy implicates the public health or welfare, the efficient administration of government, the economy, the citizenry, or the promotion of the family unit; legislation must bear a real or substantial relationship to the protection of public health, safety and welfare, in order that personal rights and property rights not be subjected to arbitrary or oppressive, rather than reasonable, invasion; the supreme court could attribute no legislative purpose to the sodomy statute except to single out homosexuals for different treatment for indulg-