[richlevy]

One case I remember from Constitutional Law class (no I am not a lawyer) was in Connecticut. The court basically struck down the law because it was silly. This case was used in a dissenting opinion in the next case, which is from 1986 and addresses a law against sodomy, which the court upheld. It was actually argued that a married heterosexual couple is entitled to greater protection and that the law might be more constitutional if it excluded married couples.

BTW, the site for this is at

Supreme Court Decisions Archive at Cornell University Law School

Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965) (USSC+)
Case Information
Griswold v. Connecticut
No. 496

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

381 U.S. 479

March 29-30, 1965

June 7, 1965

APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF ERRORS OF CONNECTICUT

Syllabus
Appellants, the Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, and its medical director, a licensed physician, were convicted as accessories for giving married persons information and medical advice on how to prevent conception and, following examination, prescribing a contraceptive device or material for the wife's use. A Connecticut statute makes it a crime for any person to use any drug or article to prevent conception. Appellants claimed that the accessory statute, as applied, violated the Fourteenth Amendment. An intermediate appellate court and the State's highest court affirmed the judgment.

Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986) (USSC+)
Case Information
Bowers v. Hardwick
No. 85-140

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

478 U.S. 186

March 31, 1986

June 30, 1986

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

Syllabus
After being charged with violating the Georgia statute criminalizing sodomy by committing that act with another adult male in the bedroom of his home, respondent Hardwick (respondent) brought suit in Federal District Court, challenging the constitutionality of the statute insofar as it criminalized consensual sodomy. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, holding that the Georgia statute violated respondent's fundamental rights.

Held: The Georgia statute is constitutional. Pp. 190-196 .

(a) The Constitution does not confer a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy. None of the fundamental rights announced in this Court's prior cases involving family relationships, marriage, or procreation bear any resemblance to the right asserted in this case. And any claim that those cases stand for the proposition that any kind of private sexual conduct between consenting adults is constitutionally insulated from state proscription is unsupportable. Pp. 190-191 .

(b) Against a background in which many States have criminalized sodomy and still do, to claim that a right to engage in such conduct is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" is, at best, facetious. Pp. 191-194 .

(c) There should be great resistance to expand the reach of the Due Process Clauses to cover new fundamental rights. Otherwise, the Judiciary necessarily would take upon itself further authority to govern the country without constitutional authority. The claimed right in this case falls far short of overcoming this resistance. Pp. 194-195 .

(d) The fact that homosexual conduct occurs in the privacy of the home does not affect the result. Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 , distinguished. Pp. 195-196 .

(e) Sodomy laws should not be invalidated on the asserted basis that majority belief that sodomy is immoral is an inadequate rationale to support the laws. P. 196 .

760 F.2d 1202, reversed. [p*187]