Lawrence v. Texas

Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court.

Police entered John Lawrence’s apartment in response to a weapons disturbance and found Lawrence and Tyron Garner engaging in consensual anal sex. They were arrested and convicted under Texas’s ‘Homosexual Conduct Law’ criminalizing same-sex sodomy. Lawrence challenged the law as violating the Due Process Clause.

Significance

Justice Kennedy’s 6-3 opinion struck down Texas’s sodomy law and overruled Bowers v. Hardwick (1986). The Court held that the Due Process Clause protects the right of adults to engage in private, consensual sexual conduct. The decision recognized that ’liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct.’ Lawrence was a landmark for LGBTQ+ rights and provided the constitutional foundation for Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which recognized the right to same-sex marriage.

Category

US Federal Case Law