Bowers v. Hardwick
| Bowers v. Hardwick | |
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| Argued March 31, 1986 Decided June 30, 1986 |
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| Full case name | Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General of Georgia v. Michael Hardwick, et al. |
| Citations | 478 U.S. 186 (more)
106 S. Ct. 2841; 92 L. Ed. 2d 140; 1986 U.S. LEXIS 123; 54 U.S.L.W. 4919
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| Prior history | Dismissed, D. Ga.; reversed and remanded, 760 F.2d 1202 (11th Cir. 1985); rehearing en banc denied, 765 F.2d 1123, (11th Cir. 1985); cert. granted, 474 U.S. 943 (1985) |
| Subsequent history | Vacated and remanded, 804 F.2d 622 (11th Cir. 1986) |
| Holding | |
| A Georgia law classifying homosexual sex as illegal sodomy was valid because there was no constitutionally protected right to engage in homosexual sex. Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded. | |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | White, joined by Burger, Powell, Rehnquist, O'Connor |
| Concurrence | Burger |
| Concurrence | Powell |
| Dissent | Blackmun, joined by Brennan, Marshall, Stevens |
| Dissent | Stevens, joined by Brennan, Marshall |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. XIV; Ga. Code § 16-6-2 (1984) | |
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Overruled by
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| Lawrence v. Texas (2003) | |
Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), is a United States Supreme Court decision, overturned in 2003, that upheld, in a 5–4 ruling, the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law criminalizing oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults, in this case with respect to homosexual sodomy, though the law did not differentiate between homosexual sodomy and heterosexual sodomy.
The majority opinion, written by Justice Byron White, reasoned that the Constitution did not confer “a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy”. A concurring opinion by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger cited the “ancient roots” of prohibitions against homosexual sex, quoting William Blackstone’s description of homosexual sex as an “infamous crime against nature”, worse than rape, and “a crime not fit to be named”. Burger concluded: “To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.” Justice Lewis F. Powell later said he regretted joining the majority, but thought the case of little importance at the time.
The senior dissent, authored by Justice Harry Blackmun, framed the issue as revolving around the right to privacy. Blackmun’s dissent accused the Court of an “almost obsessive focus on homosexual activity" and an “overall refusal to consider the broad principles that have informed our treatment of privacy in specific cases”. In response to invocations of religious taboos against homosexuality, Blackmun wrote: “That certain, but by no means all, religious groups condemn the behavior at issue gives the State no license to impose their judgments on the entire citizenry. The legitimacy of secular legislation depends, instead, on whether the State can advance some justification for its law beyond its conformity to religious doctrine.”
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