make fundamental decisions about your intimate relationships without penalisation.[1]
- ↑ Id at 205–14:
“We protect the decision whether to have a child because parenthood alters so dramatically an individual’s self-definition, not because of demographic considerations or the Bible’s command to be fruitful and multiply.
…
The fact that individuals define themselves in a significant way through their intimate sexual relationships with others suggests, in a Nation as diverse as ours, that there may be many ‘right’ ways of conducting those relationships, and that much of the richness of a relationship will come from the freedom an individual has to choose the form and nature of these intensely personal bonds.
…
‘The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations.’ [Quoting Stanley v Georgia 394 U.S. 557 (1969) at 564.]
…
[D]epriving individuals of the right to choose for themselves how to conduct their intimate relationships poses a far greater threat to the values most deeply rooted in our Nation’s history than tolerance of nonconformity could ever do.”
