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Offers a look at the role of the United States judicial system in changing U.S. culture. Statement that the Supreme Court has upheld affirmative action, stopped efforts to end abortion rights, upheld the right to trial by jury, and protected free speech, among other actions; Ability of progressives to work with and apart from the courts on issues such as racial justice and women's rights; Opinion that progressives have lost the habit of following up judicial verdicts with grassroots movements; Failure of progressives to explain to the public why abortion is fundamentally fair; Failure of the gay rights movement to follow up a Supreme Court decision that invalidated criminal sodomy laws.

The article comments on the decisions issued by the U.S. Supreme Court on various cases concerning individual rights and equality as of July 2003. According to the author, in a single week, the Court upheld affirmative action, issued a trailblazing gay rights decision, reversed a death sentence for ineffective assistance of counsel and threw out a sex offense conviction for violating the Constitution's ex post facto clause.

The article highlights the decision issued by the U.S. Supreme Court on the gay rights case, Lawrence v. Texas, as it corrected the wrong committed by the Court in the Bowers v. Hardwick case in 1986. The Court issued an affirmation of the citizenship of gay people, a confirmation of privacy rights as enumerated by reproductive rights law and, more importantly, an elaboration of sexual rights under the U.S. Constitution that could protect sexual dissidents of all stripes. According to Paula Ettelbrick of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, the decision of U.S. Justice Anthony Kennedy rejected morality as a basis for state regulation of sexuality.