Same-sex marriage proponents have some reason for optimism. Kennedy wrote both of the Court\u2019s most important gay rights decisions\u201d\u201dRomer v. Evans, (1996) which struck down a California referendum that barred adoption of laws banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation; and Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which overturned a Texas law making sodomy between same-sex partners a crime.<\/p>\n
But there is also ground for anxiety. Justice Kennedy went out of his way in Lawrence to stress that whether a state could limit marriage to opposite-sex couples remained an open question. He is, generally speaking, a conservative judge, appointed by President Reagan, and while he has been a strong defender of First Amendment rights, he sides with his more conservative colleagues much more often than he votes with the Court\u2019s more liberal faction.<\/p>\n
As a result, gay rights groups had been consciously pursuing a strategy of challenging same-sex marriage bans only in state courts, using only state constitutional arguments, as a way of building precedent and avoiding a Supreme Court loss.<\/p>\n