. - lambda. - lambda. ah, lambda, lambda. that's right. and--watch, that's not so exotic, is it? your parents see that you're doing like this. they don't say, "l. i know the alphabet." but what if your parents look down and they see you doing this? "ooh, heavy, honey, heavy. you be learning that stuff?" you say, "i know that stuff," okay? that's just the greek letter l, it stands for wavelength. you see it all through wave nomenclature. so, you ought to know what it means. that's just a greek letter l, length, the length of a wave. so the length of the wave from peak to peak, or it's from here to here. this would be lambda as well. some people get mixed up. and they say, "oh, it's from here to here." but no. this part of the wave is going down, this going up. you gotta wait till it gets to a complete cycle. boom, down again. see? lambda is the wavelength that a wave will travel in a complete cycle, a to and to again. to, fro, to. see what i'm saying? so that's you're wavelength. and that wavelength, of course, could be-- you can see it anywhere in there, usually peak to peak or f

. >> host: that is where lambda had in focus from the beginning. >> guest: lambda hata sense this case was going to go as high as the united states supreme court. interestingly, if they had prevailed among the two judges who ruled for the man the texas appeals court there would not have gone to the supreme court with this case. >> host: paying the extra fine all along the way, amusing in its own way how it got there but nevertheless the supreme court justices were very aware of this issue had been much criticized over the years since then. lambda wanted to get another case before the court. they filed a third petition and somewhere along 2002-2003. >> guest: the supreme court granted the position to hear the case. >> guest: there were two issues, one was the liberty privacy claim and equal protection claim, gays and lesbian the night for the same reason you stated these are clearly discriminatory. a lot of us, the likelihood was the court would take up the case focusing on equal protection. instead they focused on in this end the liberty privacy -- what is the significance of that, and

lambda wanted to get another case. they filed this petition and in 2002, 2003 the court granted the petition. >> guest: in the fall of 2002, the grant the petition to hear the case. >> host: sort of a legal question. there were two issues that i remember correctly. when was the liberty privacy claim. the other was the equal protection claim that gay and seven are denied exactly the reason you stated. these laws were clearly discriminatory in the first claim is the liberty privacy issue of bowers v. hardwick. i'm sort of in the category thought that the likelihood that the court would take up the case, focus on equal protection. instead, they focused in the end on the liberty privacy claim. tell us what's the significance of that and why -- did you expect that at the time to be the way they handled the case? >> guest: i didn't expect they would take up the liberty and privacy claim as you put it. i think most of the attorney at the core were were going to overturn the texas sodomy latte would be on the grounds of equal

. >> reporter: an attorney from lambda legal is now his lawyer. case was compelling. it was a good example of the ways in which the laws are misused by. >> reporter: a similar case, robert subtle's partner says he knew he had hiv, after a messy breakup, he went to police. he was charged with intentionally exposing the man to the aids virus. >> i was arrested at work and i was booked. >> reporter: to avoid a ten year sentence, he entered a plea and spent six months in jail. under the picture on his driver's license, in bold red capital letters, it says sex offender. he has to carry that tag for 15 years. >> there were people that are aware they are hiv, doesn't mean they're criminals, doesn't mean they have malicious intent to hurt anybody. they're trying to cope with having this disease, and yet there's these laws make us look like we're criminals. >> reporter: 34 states and two territories have laws that criminalize activities of people with hiv. not disclosing your status to a sexual partner can land you in jail. so can spitting on someone or bi