The Supreme Court declined Tuesday to review an Air Force lieutenant’s criminal conviction for having sex with a 15-year-old boy, which the officer contended was protected by a previous court decision overturning state statues that criminalized gay sex.

Justices, without comment, rejected the appeal by Second Lt. Ryan W. Davis. He pleaded guilty to consensual sodomy and conduct unbecoming to an officer in military court after an April 1997 meeting with a boy at a park in Gulf Breeze, Fla.