Lawrence v. Texas
Lawrence v. Texas was a landmark Supreme Court case decided in 2003, which invalidated state laws prohibiting homosexual sodomy. This case arose when police entered the apartment of John Lawrence and another man, finding them engaged in consensual sexual activity, which led to their conviction under Texas's antisodomy statute. The Texas Supreme Court upheld the conviction based on the precedent set in Bowers v. Hardwick, which had previously allowed states to criminalize homosexual conduct. However, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-1-3 decision, ruled that the Texas law violated the Due Process Clause, affirming the rights of consenting adults to engage in private intimate relationships free from government interference. Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion emphasized the evolution of legal protections for individual liberty and privacy, while also acknowledging changing attitudes toward homosexuality in society. Justices O’Connor and Scalia presented differing views in their opinions, highlighting ongoing debates about privacy rights and the implications of the ruling for broader issues, such as same-sex marriage. This case significantly advanced the legal landscape for LGBTQ+ rights in the United States, reflecting a shift towards greater acceptance and recognition of diverse sexual orientations.
Lawrence v. Texas
Date: June 26, 2003
Citation: 539 U.S. 558
Issue(s): Gay and lesbian rights
Significance: In overturning a Texas statute that had outlawed homosexual conduct, the Supreme Court extended the constitution’s protection of “liberty interests” to gays and lesbians.
After the watershed case of Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Court emphasized that the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments protected a substantive right of generic liberty (or privacy), especially in intimate sexual relationships. The justices, however, often disagreed about the contours of this protection, and in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), the Court held that Georgia’s criminalization of homosexual sodomy did not violate the Constitution. The majority of the justices accepted the theory that the due process clauses protected only those liberties that had been recognized in the history and traditions of the United States.
In 1998, a Texas police officer, responding to a report of a weapons disturbance, entered the private apartment of John Lawrence. The officer observed Lawrence and another man in an act that was forbidden by Texas’s antisodomy statute. The two men were found guilty and fined $125 each. The Texas Supreme Court upheld the judgment, based primarily on the Hardwick precedent.
When the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, however, the justices, in a 5-1-3 decision, ruled that the Texas antisodomy law was unconstitutional. Speaking for five of the justices, Anthony M. Kennedy directly overturned Hardwick and recognized the liberty of consenting adults to make decisions about intimate relationships within the privacy of their homes. He argued that the Court’s precedents since 1986 had expanded the scope of constitutional protection for liberty and that the decision of Romer v. Evans (1996) had weakened Bowers as a precedent. Kennedy noted that only thirteen states retained antisodomy statutes, with only four of these states actively enforcing those laws. Observing that the Court in Bowers had referred to Western traditions, he wrote that most Western countries no longer provided criminal penalties for homosexual practices. His opinion included expansive rhetoric about the need to respect gays and lesbians.
Although Justice Sandra Day O’Connor did not join Kennedy’s opinion, she agreed that the law was unconstitutional. Her reasoning was that it violated the principle of equal protection because it punished only homosexual conduct, not heterosexual conduct. In a short dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas rejected the entire notion of a “general right of privacy.” Justice Antonin Scalia’s long dissent denounced the majority for supporting the “homosexual agenda.” He warned that the logic of the decision might have broad consequences, such as forcing states to recognize same-sex marriages and requiring admission of openly gay persons into the military.