Bowers v. Hardwick

Bowers v. Hardwick, {{ussc|478|186|1986}}, was a United States Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law that criminalized oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults. Seventeen years later the Supreme Court directly overruled Bowers in the Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) decision and held that such laws are unconstitutional. (See judicial review.)

Aftermath

Bowers was decided at a time when the court's privacy jurisprudence, and in particular the right to abortion recognized in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), had come under heavy criticism and was in doubt. In this historical context, Bowers signaled a reluctance by the then-members of the Court to recognize a general constitutional right to privacy or to extend such a right further than they already had.

Related Topics:
Roe v. Wade - 1973

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Some contend that Bowers should be understood in the historical context of the AIDS epidemic, which was in a relatively early stage in 1986. In the early 1980s, the epidemic had occasioned a large amount of press coverage about homosexuality, which previously had been a taboo topic in the U.S. mass media.

Related Topics:
AIDS - Homosexuality - Mass media

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State sodomy laws have seldom been enforced against private consensual conduct in recent decades, but the Bowers decision was frequently cited in opposition to gay rights programs. The Georgia law upheld in Bowers forbade oral sex and anal sex whether engaged in by people of the same sex or different sexes, but the Court's repeated use of the term "homosexual sodomy" led many to believe that the decision was limited to same-sex relations.

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In the years after Bowers was decided, several state legislatures repealed their sodomy laws. In addition, a number of state courts invalidated sodomy laws under privacy or other provisions of their state constitutions. The same sodomy law that was upheld in Bowers was struck down by the Georgia Supreme Court under the Georgia state constitution in the case of Powell v. State, 270 Ga. 327 (1998). The remaining state sodomy laws in the U.S. were invalidated, insofar as they applied to private consensual conduct, in the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case of Lawrence v. Texas.

Related Topics:
Powell v. State - 1998 - Lawrence v. Texas

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