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Last edited: April 18, 2007
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Bowers v. Hardwick
"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 Kennedy in Lawrence v. Texas
One of the most significant of of all legal decisions having to do with sodomy laws is the
infamous Bowers v. Hardwick
(1986), 478 U.S. 186, 106 S.Ct. 2841, 92 L.Ed.2d 140.
The case was overturned in just 17 years by Lawrence & Garner v. State of Texas.
Michael Hardwick was a bartender in a gay bar in Atlanta, Georgia who was targeted by a
police officer for harassment. In 1982, an unknowing houseguest let the officer let into
Hardwick’s home the officer went to the bedroom where Hardwick was engaged in
oral sex
with his partner. The men were arrested on the charge of sodomy. Charges were later
dropped, but Hardwick brought the case forward with the purpose of having the sodomy law
declared unconstitutional.
Bowers was a response to a particularly insulting police action and repeal
advocates had hoped that the case would put an end to sodomy laws in the United States
when it reached the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, the 5-4 decision found that nothing in
the Constitution "would extend a fundamental right to homosexuals to engage in acts
of consensual sodomy."
Justice Lewis Powell was the swing vote in the decision, switching from supporting
invalidating all sodomy laws to denying homosexuals any right of privacy. In October of
1990, three years after his retirement, Powell told a group of New York University Law
students, "I think I probably made a mistake in that one." He told the National
Law Journal, "That case was not a major case, and one of the reasons I voted the way
I did was the case was a frivolous case" brought "just to see what the court
would do" on the subject. A more callous opinion is hard to imagine.
The Majority Opinion by Justice White also showed rather poor
scholarship.
Oral Arguments
News
- Southern
Voice, September 22, 2006
- Gay Legal
Group Blasts Atlanta Bar Association - Southern
Voice, September 15, 2006
- Gay Lawyers Protest Bowers Award - The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 15, 2006
- Gay Lawyers
Oppose Honor for Former Georgia AG - 365Gay.com,
September 14, 2006
Atlanta's Bar Association plans to honor a man accused of delaying for two
decades the overturn of sodomy laws used to persecute gays - former
Attorney General Mike Bowers.
- Blackmun Predicted 1986 Sodomy Decision’s
Reversal - March 19, 2004
- Senate Confirms Mosman - September 27, 2003
- Three Bush Judicial Nominees Attacked on
Gay Record - Houston Voice,
April 25, 2003
- Smith’s Pick Stirs Gay-Rights
Controversy - The Oregonian,
April 21, 2003
- Bowers v. Hardwick at
15 - July 12, 2001
- Lewis F. Powell Jr., Who Became the Quiet Centrist of the Supreme
Court, Is Dead at 90 - August 26, 1998
- Ex-Supreme Court Justice Powell Dies - August
25, 1998
- Former Justice Powell Angers Gays
with Hardwick Flip-Flop - November 2, 1990
- Powell Regrets Backing Sodomy Law - October 26, 1990
- Homosexuals Get Short Shrift from the Supreme Court,
But an Expert Says History Tells a Different Tale - July 21, 1986
- Knocking on the Bedroom Door - July 14, 1986
Editorials
- Mosman Should Answer Question - The
Oregonian, March 17, 2003
- Jurist’s Death Marks Legacy of Ignorance - Deb
Price, September 10, 1998
- Bowers v. Hardwick, Romer v. Evans, and the
Meaning of Anti-Discrimination Legislation - 1996
- Courting Disaster; Can We Have Sex With Whomever We Want The
Way We Want It? - Playboy,
December, 1986
- God Save This Vulnerable Court - National Review, August
15, 1986
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