University and state officials disagree on the probable outcome of United States Supreme Court’s plans to revisit the constitutionality of sodomy laws in 13 states.

Arguments in the case will begin in early 2003. Discussion of the laws is being revisited after two men in Texas were prosecuted in 1998 for engaging in same-sex intercourse, according to CNN.com.

Iowa’s sodomy law was repealed in 1978, but the Iowa Civil Liberties Union and others say the decision could mean a lot.

Dirk Deam, lecturer in political science, said the Supreme Court revisits issues such as sodomy for several reasons.

“Sometimes they revisit the issue because there’s confusion in the lower courts and they’re trying to reconcile what the lower courts are doing. Sometimes it’s because there’s a change in public perceptions and public mood and the court very slowly responds,” he said.

Ben Stone, executive director for the Iowa Civil Liberties Union, said he thinks the Supreme Court will overturn sodomy laws.

Stone said he is encouraged sodomy laws will change because of the Supreme Court’s ruling on a 1996 Colorado case.

Stone said a resolution was passed by the people of Colorado that stated it is illegal for any locality of the state, city or county to provide protection to gays, lesbians or transgendered people.

“The Supreme Court ruled states could not pass laws that basically forbid civil rights protections to a group of people and in this case, that group of people was gays and lesbians,” he said. “It was one of the first times the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the humanity of gays and lesbians.”

Stone said he thinks, if the decision is not overturned, it will at least be changed and improved.

He said cases such as Bowers v. Hardwick, in which a Georgia man was arrested in his own bedroom for having sex with another man in 1986, make him realize things can only get better.

“How can you possibly make a ruling worse?” Stone said. “The bedroom is the most private sanctum that exists in our society and [sexual activity] is the most private behavior that you can do, yet these people were arrested.

“Normally people don’t want the government in the bedroom, but when it comes to gay people they say, ‘Fine, go ahead,'” he said.

If overturned, Stone said the decision will have a direct impact on citizens in states where sodomy laws currently exist. He said the decision will take the threat of prosecution away from LGBT Americans and make them feel they are no longer targets.

Todd Herriot, adviser for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Ally Alliance, said he doesn’t expect the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the original ruling.

“The Supreme Court has been very much a states’-rights advocate … and so I think that’s why we’re seeing such a difference across the U.S. in terms of sodomy laws,” he said. “I have hope that they’re going to look at this in terms of citizens’ right as well as privacy rights and see this as an issue that goes beyond states’-rights supremacy.”

Herriot said sodomy laws are not written toward specific behavior but toward specific individuals.

“Sodomy law in a vast majority of states only specifically prohibits same sex interaction, so in a state like Georgia, for a man and a woman to engage in oral sex is legal, but for consenting adults of the same sex, the same action is illegal,” he said. “It gets into a question of whether this a state prohibition of action or a state prohibition of individual freedoms.”

Herriot said if the Supreme Court does not overturn the ruling, it will be seen as a setback for social justice movements, particularly concerning LGBT issues.

“It’s frightening because what [sodomy law] does is give a stamp of approval for a sexual police state. What that means is that for myself, as a gay man, I don’t have the sanctity of knowing that my home is safe for me at any time,” he said. “My home can be subject to search and I can be prosecuted for consensual activity in my own home. In no other situation in the United States is that a possibility.”