Lawrence v. Texas was a 2003 case decided by the United States Supreme Court. In the 6-3 ruling, the justices invalidated the criminal prohibition of homosexual sodomy in Texas. The court had previously addressed the same issue in 1986 with Bowers v. Hardwick, but there had upheld the challenged Georgia statute, not finding a constitutional right to homosexual sodomy. Lawrence overturned Bowers, which it held viewed the liberty at stake too narrowly. The Lawrence court held that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. Lawrence had the effect of invalidating similar laws throughout the United States insofar as they apply to consenting adults acting in private. The case attracted much public attention, and a large number of amicus curiae briefs were filed in the case. The decision was celebrated by gay rights activists, hoping that further legal advances may result as a consequence; the decision was lamented by social conservatives for the same reasons

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas

Today's selected anniversaries:

* 1597 - Twelve ships of the Korean navy led by Admiral Yi Sun-sin sank 31 of 133 enemy ships and prevented a Japanese invasion. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_Sun-sin)

* 1701 - Prince James Francis Edward Stuart, more commonly referred to as the "Old Pretender", became the Jacobite claimant of the thrones of England and Scotland. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Francis_Edward_Stuart)

* 1941 - Reza Pahlavi the Shah of Persia was forced to resign in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reza_Pahlavi)

* 1963 - Malaya, Singapore, North Borneo and Sarawak merged to form Malaysia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia)

* 1982 - The Phalange, a Lebanese militia, carried out a massacre in the Palestinian refugee camp of Sabra and Shatila. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_Massacre)

* 1992 - Black Wednesday: The British Pound Sterling was forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and suffered a major devaluation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday)

Wikiquote of the day:

"The humbleness of a warrior is not the humbleness of the beggar. The warrior lowers his head to no one, but at the same time, he doesn't permit anyone to lower his head to him. The beggar, on the other hand, falls to his knees at the drop of a hat and scrapes the floor to anyone he deems to be higher; but at the same time, he demands that someone lower than him scrape the floor for him." ~ Carlos Castaneda (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carlos_Castaneda)