Background of Lawrence, et al. v. Texas
Overview of Court Action on Gay Rights Issues
In 1998, sheriff’s officers, responding to a false report of a weapons disturbance, entered the private residence of John Geddes Lawrence, found Lawrence and Tyron Garner engaged in consensual sex, and arrested the two men for violating a Texas statute that prohibits homosexual sodomy. Under the Texas penal code, "A person commits an offense if he engages in deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex"; "deviate sexual intercourse" is defined to include oral or anal sex. Following their convictions, Lawrence and Garner challenged the statute on constitutional equal protection and due process privacy grounds. Although a panel…
