Thursday, June 26, 2003
Lawrence 2, Texas 0
The Supreme Court struck down Texas' ban on private consensual sex between adults of the same sex today, in a landmark ruling that enshrined for the first time a broad constitutional right to sexual privacy.
A five-justice majority of the court ruled that the state intruded on the "liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions" when it fined two Houston men, John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner, for engaging in anal sex in Lawrence's apartment almost five years ago.
The case involved not minors or prostitutes, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court, but "two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle. The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime."
Story everywhere, but just in case you didn't see it.
posted by chris at 6:12 PM
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