What Does Sodomy Mean? a Complete Guide to Modern Criminal Charges and Law Terms

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State-level progress remained uneven through the late twentieth century. In 1986, the United States Supreme Court upheld state anti-sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick, ruling that the Constitution conferred no fundamental right upon homosexual adults to engage in private consensual sodomy. That decision left millions of Americans vulnerable to selective enforcement and state-sanctioned surveillance.

The watershed moment arrived on June 26, 2003, with the landmark Lawrence v. Texas ruling. Houston police officers had entered the private residence of John Geddes Lawrence under the pretext of investigating a reported weapons disturbance, discovering Lawrence and Tyron Garner engaged in a consensual sexual act. Both men were arrested and convicted under the Texas "Homosexual Conduct" statute, a misdemeanor law penalizing same-sex deviate sexual intercourse.

Writing for the 6, 3 majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy reversed the Bowers precedent. The Supreme Court held that state statutes criminalizing consensual adult sodomy violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Kennedy wrote that adults maintain a constitutionally protected liberty interest in their private, intimate associations:

"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."

The ruling effectively invalidated remaining consensual anti-sodomy statutes across 14 states, establishing that the government possesses no legitimate interest in policing consensual adult sexual intimacy behind closed doors.