On 02 October 2003, The Court of Appeals found John Geddes Lawrence, the defendant guilty due to the fact that it is against state law Tex. Penal Code Ann. 21.06(a) (2003). It provides: “A person commits an offense if he engages in deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex” (Kemp & Skelton, 2015). A Supreme Court decision eventually overturned the Texas state law prohibiting consensual, private sexual activity between gays and lesbians. The reason the Supreme Court accepted the case for adjudication was because they felt three questions needed to be considered.
“1. Whether Petitioners' criminal convictions under the Texas "Homosexual Conduct" law--which criminalizes sexual intimacy by same-sex couples, but not identical
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This case originated in the Court of Appeals of Texas, the question was the validity of a Texas statute making it a crime for two persons of the same sex to engage in certain intimate sexual conduct, but not identical behavior by different sex couples violate the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection of laws. Under the Fourteenth Amendment the Equal Protection Clause is the laws of a state they must treat an individual in the same manner as others in similar conditions and circumstances. The Supreme Court also had to answer the question of whether or not the criminal petitioners convictions for adult consensual sexual intimacy in the home violate their vital interests in liberty and privacy protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? Under the Due Process Clause, "First, it incorporates [against the States] specific protections defined in the Bill of Rights....Second, it contains a substantive component, sometimes referred to as ‘substantive due process.'...Third, it is a guarantee of fair procedure, sometimes referred to as ‘procedural due process'..." (Ely Jr., 2015 ). Nonetheless, it did violate the Due Process Clause because liberty protects the person from unwarranted government intrusions and both individuals were adults, their conduct was consensual, as well as, the right to