NYT

I sent a letter today and got a quick response, but it leaves me with more questions.

Dear Ethicist:
     I am confused by the recent supreme court ruling on sodomy. I understand that laws like the one in Texas have been ruled unconstitutional– so any ban on gay sex is out. But are generalized sodomy laws still constitutional, provided that they don’t discriminate based on gender? In other words, is oral sex still illegal in Pennsylvania? Where does this ruling leave mixed-gender sodomites?

Yours,
Verbal
Secretly Ironic Industries

Verbal:
    I think you need to contact “The Legalist;” I’m just “The Ethicist.” But as I, a non-lawyer understand it, you’ve read the decision too narrowly. Justice O’Connor made the equal protection case, arguing that what’s illegal sauce for the goose must be illegal sauce for the gander. But the court ruled more broadly, based on the right to privacy, arguing that the government has no business prying into people’s consensual sex lives. So this decision seems to me to disallow all of the sort of laws you describe with putative humor.
Yours,
RC

My questions are, where can I find a legalist? And does it seem to me that putative is an insult in this context?