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...finding a such a right protected by the 9th amendment at the time it was passed, is going to take a heap of diggging, and probably will result in a dry hole. Sure the federal government had no power to legislate in the area at all, but you'd have to find someone who argued for such a right, or a provision in state constititutions or laws of the time, or even in English Common law, protecting such a right.

You are correct in that States had laws outlawing homosexual behavior. And prior to the passage of the 14th Amendment, those laws were unquestionably Constitutional. There was not, to the best of my knowledge, any Federal law on the matter. And indeed, the 10th Amendment would forbid any instrusion into what was a State matter. As I said, there is arguably a Federal "right to buggery" contained in the 9th Amendment. That 9th Amendment right is now protected from State infringment under the 14th Amendment.

(Cases like this make a good argument that the 14th Amendment is perhaps too broad. But as I said before, I'm torn on the matter. I live in California. While I want Sacramento writing laws for some areas of life, I don't want them writing gun laws. I'd much rather have the 2nd Amendment protecting my rights than the nebulous "right to self-defense" in the CA constitution. I hope to see the 14th Amendment used one day as a blunt instrument on CA's gun laws!)

Yesterday Kennedy in Lawrence wrote as if he was only striking down criminal punishment of homosexual acts between consenting adults. Today, on the basis of Lawrence, the Supreme Court in Liman vacated a judgment for homosexual sex with a (retarded) 14-year-old boy. Kennedy must have known about that case when he wrote his Lawrence opinion.