Lawrence v. Texas

Table of Contents

Lawrence v. Texas
Overview
Context
About the Author
Explanation and Analysis of the Document
Impact
Document Text

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Abstract

In 1986, in Bowers v. Hardwick the U.S. Supreme Court upheld as constitutional a Georgia law criminalizing sodomy between consenting adults. The defendant in the case was a gay man who had been convicted under the statute. He argued that he had a constitutional right to privacy that extended to private, consensual sexual conduct. Reframing the legal question as whether the Constitution created “a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy,” the Court rejected the defendant’s arguments and answered that the Constitution provided no such right.

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