Lawrence v. Texas
The Court struck down laws criminalizing intimate same-sex conduct, protecting liberty in personal relationships.
Overview
Houston police entered John Lawrence's apartment on a false weapons report and found him with another man, leading to conviction under the Texas homosexual conduct law. Justice Kennedy, for a 6-3 majority, held that intimate consensual conduct is a liberty interest protected by due process, overruling Bowers v. Hardwick after seventeen years. The opinion grounded the right in personal autonomy and the right to define one's own concept of existence. Lawrence dismantled the legal architecture of sodomy laws and provided the liberty foundation for marriage equality a decade later.
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