Sep 13, 2006Articles: Tyrone Garner, plaintiff in landmark gay rights case dies
By VZ
(Washington, USA) Tyrone Garner who challenged Texas' sodomy law to the US Supreme Court and won a landmark decision has died. In 1998 Garner and John Lawrence were charged under the sodomy law after police burst into Lawrence's Houston home in search of an armed intruder and discovered the two men engaged in sex.
(Washington, USA) Tyrone Garner who challenged Texas' sodomy law to the US Supreme Court and won a landmark decision has died. In 1998 Garner and John Lawrence were charged under the sodomy law after police burst into Lawrence's Houston home in search of an armed intruder and discovered the two men engaged in sex.
Police later said the tip there was an intruder came from an anonymous source.
Garner and Lawrence pleaded no contest to the charge and were fined $200 each and ordered to pay court costs. The convictions barred both men from holding several types of jobs in Texas. If they moved to other states, they could have been required to register as sex offenders.
The pair later challenged the constitutionality of the Texas law and in 2003 it reached the US Supreme Court.
In a 6 - 3 decision, the court said that states cannot make laws regarding the private sexual conduct of Americans.
The ruling said the Texas law violated the Due Process clause of the Constitution. Writing for the majority Justice Anthony M. Kennedy called the ban on gay sex an "unconstitutional violation of privacy."
"[It] demeans the lives of homosexual persons," Kennedy wrote.
The ruling negated not only the sodomy law in Texas, but those in a dozen other states. Three states -- Missouri, Oklahoma and Kansas had laws targeting only gays. Another nine states -- Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia -- had sodomy laws that applied to all adults, gay or straight.
Lambda Legal represented both Lawrence and Garner.
"Because Tyrone Garner and John Lawrence had the courage to challenge homophobic sodomy laws, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that love, sexuality and family play the same role in gay people's lives as they do for everyone else. That's a colossal legacy and one for which his community will forever be thankful," said Lambda Executive Director, Kevin Cathcart in a statement Tuesday.
