A Couple’s Right to Privacy

In 2003, the United States Supreme Court in the case of Lawrence v. Texas held that a Texas sodomy statute that prohibited two men from engaging in sexual conduct violated their due process rights. A majority of the Court said: “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. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government.” Justice O’Connor concurred in the result, stating that the Texas statute violated principles of equal protection since the statute outlawed homosexual sodomy, but not heterosexual sodomy. Three Justices (Scalia, Rehnquist and Thomas) dissented, arguing that a prohibition of sodomy does not infringe on a fundamental right, that “[w]hat Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional democratic action.”