By KRISTEN HAYS
Associated Press Writer
March 16, 2001
HOUSTON (AP) - A Texas appeals court upheld the
state's sodomy law Thursday in the case of two men
charged with having sex in a private home.
The nine-member 14th Court of Appeals voted 7-2 to
overturn a June ruling by three members of the same
panel that said the law was unconstitutional because it
forbids sex between same-sex partners, yet allows the
same acts between heterosexuals.
The sodomy law, which has been on the books for more
than a century, was challenged after John Geddes
Lawrence and Tyron Garner were arrested on Sept. 17,
1998 and charged with engaging in homosexual conduct.
Harris County sheriff's deputies had entered
Lawrence's apartment after receiving a false report of
an armed intruder inside but found the men having sex.
Under the sodomy law, homosexual oral and anal sex is
a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to
$500.
Lawrence and Garner pleaded no contest in a justice
of the peace court and later in a Harris County Criminal
Court-at-Law so they could start the legal challenge.
Prosecutor Bill Delmore said he was pleased with the
ruling.
Ruth E. Harlow, legal director of the Lambda Legal
Defense and Education Fund, who argued the case on
behalf of the two men, said they would appeal.
"The court's ruling failed to enforce the
constitution's promise of equality,'' she said.
She said the ruling also allows the government to
overstep its bounds by ``bashing down the bedroom door''
to criminalize consensual sex between same-sex partners.
`It guts the right to privacy,'' she said.
Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas are the only
states that outlaw sodomy between same-sex partners.
Texas has had a sodomy law since 1860 but decriminalized
it for opposite-sex partners in 1974.
Twelve other states prohibit sodomy between same- and
opposite-sex partners. Harlow said similar laws in
Georgia, Tennessee and Montana have recently been thrown
out.
