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)