539 U.S. 558 (2003)
In Houston, Texas, officers of the Harris County Police Department were dispatched to a private residence in response to a reported weapons disturbance.1
They entered an apartment where one of the petitioners, John Geddes Lawrence, resided.2 The officers observed Lawrence and another man, Tyron Garner, engaging in a sexual act.3 The two petitioners were arrested, held in custody overnight, and charged and convicted before a Justice of the Peace.4
The complaints described their crime as "deviate sexual intercourse, namely anal sex, with a member of the same sex (man)."5 Texas Penal Code Ann. § 21.06(a) (2003) provides that a person commits an offense if he engages in deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex.6 The statute defines deviate sexual intercourse as any contact between any part of the genitals of one person and the mouth or anus of another person, or the penetration of the genitals or the anus of another person with an object.7
The petitioners exercised their right to a trial de novo in Harris County Criminal Court.8 They challenged the statute as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and of a like provision of the Texas Constitution.9 Those contentions were rejected.10 The petitioners, having entered a plea of nolo contendere, were each fined $200 and assessed court costs of $141.25.11
The Court of Appeals for the Texas Fourteenth District considered the petitioners' federal constitutional arguments under both the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.12 After hearing the case en banc the court, in a divided opinion, rejected the constitutional arguments and affirmed the convictions.13 The majority opinion indicates that the Court of Appeals considered our decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), to be controlling on the federal due process aspect of the case.14
The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider three questions.15 The petitioners were adults at the time of the alleged offense.16 Their conduct was in private and consensual.17
Whether petitioners' criminal convictions under the Texas 'Homosexual Conduct' law—which criminalizes sexual intimacy by same-sex couples, but not identical behavior by different-sex couples—violate the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection of laws?18
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that all persons similarly situated be treated alike.19 Under rational basis review legislation is presumed valid if the classification drawn by the statute is rationally related to a legitimate state interest.20 Moral disapproval of a politically unpopular group is not a legitimate state interest.21
Yes. The Texas statute draws a classification based solely on the sex of the participants by prohibiting deviate sexual intercourse only when performed by persons of the same sex while leaving identical conduct by different-sex couples untouched.22 The sole asserted justification of promoting morality amounts to a bare desire to harm homosexuals as a class rather than any legitimate governmental purpose.23
The established facts show that Lawrence and Garner, both adults, were convicted under the statute for private consensual conduct that would not have been criminal if performed by a man and a woman.24 The Court of Appeals affirmed solely on the authority of Bowers without separate equal-protection analysis.
Because the classification lacks a rational relation to any legitimate interest beyond moral disapproval, the convictions violate the Equal Protection Clause.25
The Texas statute therefore violates the Equal Protection Clause by imposing unequal criminal liability on the basis of the participants' sex without any legitimate state interest to justify the distinction.26
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Justice O’Connor concurred in the judgment on equal-protection grounds alone.27 She emphasized that the statute brands homosexuals as a class by criminalizing conduct closely correlated with homosexual orientation while leaving heterosexual conduct untouched.28 Moral disapproval alone cannot justify a classification that disadvantages one group under the Equal Protection Clause.29
The law exhibits a bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group, which is not a legitimate state interest under rational basis review.30 Texas' invocation of moral disapproval proves nothing more than its desire to criminalize homosexual sodomy, and the Equal Protection Clause prevents a State from creating a classification of persons undertaken for its own sake.31
Whether petitioners' criminal convictions for adult consensual sexual intimacy in the home violate their vital interests in liberty and privacy protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?32
The Due Process Clause protects intimate personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy, including decisions concerning sexual conduct between consenting adults in private.33 A state statute that criminalizes such conduct without furthering any legitimate state interest violates the liberty protected by that Clause.34
Yes. The petitioners were adults who engaged in private consensual sexual conduct within the home.35 The Texas statute intrudes directly into that realm of personal liberty by imposing criminal penalties without advancing any legitimate governmental interest.36
The established facts establish that officers entered Lawrence's apartment, observed the conduct, and secured convictions and fines under the statute that applies only to same-sex participants, with no evidence of minors, coercion, public conduct, or injury to third parties.37
Because the statute demeans the existence of persons who make such private choices and serves no legitimate purpose, the convictions cannot stand under the Due Process Clause.38
The convictions therefore violate the petitioners' protected liberty interests under the Due Process Clause.39
Whether Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), should be overruled?40
A precedent that has been eroded by subsequent decisions, subjected to substantial criticism, and induced no detrimental reliance comparable to other constitutional liberties may be overruled when its rationale does not withstand careful analysis and its central holding has been brought into question by later cases.41
Yes. Bowers misapprehended the liberty at stake by framing the issue as a right to engage in homosexual sodomy rather than the broader right of adults to make intimate personal choices.42 Its historical premises have been undermined by subsequent decisions such as Casey and Romer as well as by the pattern of nonenforcement and repeal of similar statutes.43
The established facts of this case mirror those in Bowers yet present adults engaged in private consensual conduct.44 The Court of Appeals treated Bowers as controlling, demonstrating that the precedent continues to produce erroneous results.45
Because the rationale of Bowers cannot be reconciled with the Court's later recognition of substantive liberty interests and because no reliance interests counsel against reversal, Bowers should be and is overruled.46
Bowers v. Hardwick is therefore overruled.47
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Joined by The Chief Justice And Justice Thomas
Justice Scalia dissented, arguing that the majority improperly relaxed stare decisis standards to overrule Bowers.48 The decision effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation by holding that promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not a legitimate state interest.49 The Court has taken sides in a culture war by imposing its own views rather than allowing democratic processes to operate.50
Countless judicial decisions and legislative enactments have relied on the proposition that a governing majority's belief that certain sexual behavior is immoral constitutes a rational basis for regulation.51 The overruling of Bowers entails a massive disruption of the current social order.52
Justice Thomas dissented separately.53 He stated that while he would vote to repeal the statute if he were a member of the Texas Legislature.54 He agreed with Justice Scalia that the Court has no business imposing its moral views on the States.55 The Texas statute is not unconstitutional under any recognized theory of substantive due process.56
As a Member of the Court he is not empowered to help petitioners and others similarly situated.57 He must decide cases agreeably to the Constitution and laws of the United States.58