Last edited: February 14, 2005

Court Hears Challenge to Texas Sodomy Law

The Advocate, November 5, 1999

Two men arrested in their own bedroom for having sex appeared in a Houston court Wednesday to challenge their conviction for sodomy. John Lawrence and Tyrone Garner were arrested last year for violating the state law that bans same-gender sexual activity. The pair were convicted and ordered to pay a $125 fine. Lawrence and Garner were arrested after a neighbor with whom they had been fighting phoned in a false report to police of an armed man acting erratically in Lawrence’s home. "All Texans should have the right to privacy to do whatever they wish in their bedrooms with another consenting adult," said Ruth Harlow, an attorney for Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a gay group representing Lawrence and Garner. A brief filed in support of the sodomy law by the state said that "Texas courts have held that morality and the promotion of family values are legitimate governmental interests justifying exercise of the state police powers."

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