Homosexuality: … To a Right to (Homo)sexual Privacy

Abstract

By the mid-1970s, David Norris and the Irish Gay Rights Movement had acquired considerable experience of the courts, and, finding the criminal label increasingly offensive, they decided to sue the state for keeping on the statute book legal provisions that they felt were unconstitutional as they breached the civil rights of a category of its citizens. A powerful case was mounted with an impressive array of expert witnesses. It eventually resulted in the 1988 judgment of a European court.