It offended liberals, libertines and libertarians who wanted sodomy legalized.
what they Justices did after that is a different thing.
"Today's opinion is the product of a Court, which is the prduct of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct." -- Justice Scalia