Clarence's dream case...

Most little boys grow up dreaming of clubbing the game-winning homerun in the bottom of the ninth or sinking a winning basket as time runs out. The lucky ones are given a chance to play the games of their youth for money. It's a kind of Kismet when your hobby and your job become one. Which is why Clarence Thomas is one happy camper today.

The Texas case is a challenge to a law that makes it a crime for people of the same sex to engage in "deviate sexual intercourse," defined as oral or anal sex. In accepting the case, the justices agreed to consider whether to overturn a 1986 precedent, Bowers v. Hardwick, which upheld a Georgia sodomy law that at least on its face, if not in application, also applied to heterosexuals.

While the Texas case has received enormous attention from gay news media organizations and other groups that view the 1986 decision as particularly notorious, it has been largely overshadowed in a busy Supreme Court term by the challenge to the University of Michigan's affirmative action program. The justices accepted both cases on the same day last December, and briefing has proceeded along identical schedules. The Texas case will be argued March 26 and the Michigan case six days later, on April 1.

Affirmative Action and sodomy, two things near and dear to Thomas...all in one Supreme Court term.

You'll have to excuse Justice Thomas if he has a bounce in his step on March 26. He has work to do....