Lawrence v. Texas - Milestone Documents

Lawrence v. Texas

( 2003 ) Commentary by Alicia R. Ouellette, Albany Law School
  • “Freedom extends beyond spatial bounds. Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct. The instant case involves liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions.” - Justice Anthony Kennedy, Majority Opinion
  • “When sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring. The liberty protected by the Constitution allows homosexual persons the right to make this choice.” - Justice Anthony Kennedy, Majority Opinion
  • “Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today. It ought not to remain binding precedent. Bowers v. Hardwick should be and now is overruled.” - Justice Anthony Kennedy, Majority Opinion
  • “Times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom.” - Justice Anthony Kennedy, Majority Opinion
  • “We have never held that moral disapproval, without any other asserted state interest, is a sufficient rationale under the Equal Protection Clause to justify a law that discriminates among groups of persons.” - Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Concurrence
  • “It is clear from this that the Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed.” - Justice Antonin Scalia, Dissent
  • “At the end of its opinion—after having laid waste the foundations of our rational-basis jurisprudence—the Court says that the present case ‘does not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter.' Do not believe it.” - Justice Antonin Scalia, Dissent
  • “Today's opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.” - Justice Antonin Scalia, Dissent
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Anthony Kennedy (U.S. Supreme Court)

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