Lawrence vs. Texas, Essay Example

In adjudication in Lawrence v Texas case, the Supreme Court famously invalidated state criminal laws that prohibit same-sex sodomy. In the case, the liberty interest Lawrence protects was based on powerful doctrinal foundations that are clearly acknowledged and elegantly treated in Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion. Founded on Equal Protection Clause, moral disapproval of same-sex sodomy was functionally equivalent in status-based hostility toward homosexual people (Haque, 2007). The court applied the Due Process Clause, where it described in respectful terms the moral opinions it rejected as illegitimate grounds for punishment, as well as criminalization. Therefore, the court approved the state law criminalizing certain intimate sexual conduct among two compliant adults of the same sex was not constitutional. The Supreme Court meant that any law that criminalized the act of sodomy was in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourth Amendment. Kennedy employed ambiguous, extraordinary, as well as unclearly defined balancing test, which worked outside the fundamental/non-fundamental framework within which the dominant substantive legal process test operated. The judge based his decision on Byron White where he authored the majority view in “Bowers” (Haque, 2007). The Supreme Court’s decision was founded on a constitutional basis that the liberty sheltered by the US Consistution permits heterosexual and homosexual individuals the right to institute a special relationship with a friend, specifically in a sexual affiliation. Thus, in this case the Texas statute was not constitutional as it punished only acts that are committed by couples of the same sex. The court argued that actions among compliant adults in the privacy of their residence is a privacy, as well as freedom interest safeguarded by the legal process clause, as well as that “Bowers” must be overruled. Finally, the court held that morality may still play a vital role in law-making; however, it cannot be the only or dominant reason for a law.

Reference

Haque, A.A. (2007). Lawrence v. Texas and the Limits of the Criminal Law. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, Vol 42.

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