To go at all in depth into the political philosophy here would take pages and pages of text, but suffice to say that “simple, fundamental axioms of law” don’t really provide a basis for legislation – they provide a basis for the lack of legislation. And it’s worth pointing out that even these ‘simple, fundamental axioms’ are pretty arbitrary and even a bit dated on face – why exactly do we not consider psychological harms like offense as infringement in an age when we understand that one’s psychological responses are unwilled and not a product of the virtue of one’s soul? Even Mill’s empirical reasoning is very easy to pick apart. Regardless, Mill’s criterion doesn’t say much about which laws Congress ought to pass – it only says that there are certain kinds of laws that we ought not to pass. “Leave others alone as long as they’re not physically hurting anybody” isn’t really a reason to -do- anything; you want universal health care, a reformed electoral college, gay marriage, and legal abortion, and all of this requires that you will the legislation of your arbitrary personal morals.

I agree with you entirely that our Constitution essentially enshrines Mill’s criterion as the law of the land via the first amendment, and I think one can use that to compellingly argue that the Court came to the right end result on Lawrence, but that just doesn’t look like the way that Kennedy got there. He seems to believe that imposing our morals on society is simply wrong, period, and he compounds his error by taking as given that one can sensibly define ‘liberty’ without already mandating one’s moral code (this is, of course, bunk – for every imaginable ‘right’ and ‘harm’, one can produce another ‘right’ and ‘harm’ that contradict them entirely, and to choose which ‘right’ is to be protected and which ‘harm’ is to be minimized is to bring in external, albeit near-universal, valuations).

As to PC, you’re right that the evidence is weak and circumstantial, but we’ve gone on less when going to war. “Not in cone of silence when he was supposed to be” means ample opportunities to cheat, coupled with a few more-than-quick answers, at least gives suspicion.

Also, this: “One ought not be able to justify otherwise unwise or irrational policy decisions based on faith alone” begs the question. No decision is rational divorced of any motivation. You’re either assuming that there’s some rational basis for decisions outside of sets of values or that faith is somehow inferior to other methods of valuation.

What we can say is that faith (or any method of valuation) alone does not justify the violation of foundational principles of American justice found in the constitution. The whole point of the first amendment is that if you’re not directly hurting anyone (offense doesn’t count), then the government can’t touch you. I don’t know all the legal aspects of it, but, ethically speaking, Lawrence could have been decided on freedom of religion grounds. I agree with the Court’s result, but I have to agree with Scalia that Kennedy’s decision is idiotic.