The Supreme Court is striking down a Texas law banning gay sex. By a six-to-three vote, the justices ruled that the law was an unconstitutional violation of privacy. The decision reverses course from a ruling 17 years ago that states could punish homosexuals for what such laws historically called deviant sex. The ruling invalidated a Texas law against "deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex." The case is a major reexamination of the rights and acceptance of gay people in the United States. More broadly, it also tests a state's ability to classify as a crime what goes on behind the closed bedroom doors of consenting adults. Texas officials had defended the law as promoting the institutions of marriage and family, and argued that communities have the right to choose their own standards. But the majority opinion written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy declared that the law "demeans the lives of homosexual persons."