More than 75 University students and community members gathered Wednesday night at the Knight Law Center to attend a forum focusing on anti-sodomy laws in America.
The forum — called “From Bowers to Lawrence: Sex, Privacy and the Components of Liberty” — was hosted by the Women’s Law Forum and OUTLAWs.
Two panelists joined event moderator and University professor Dominick Vetri to create the panel of speakers that focused on two U.S. Supreme Court cases involving gay rights and state sodomy laws: Bowers v. Hardwick, 1986, and Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, 2003.
“Folks attracted to others of the same sex were part of the Americas from the beginning,” Vetri said in his opening statement. “We were of this land, but it was not our land. We had yet to make it so.”
Catherine Hendricks, an appellate attorney in the Torts Division of the Washington state Attorney General’s Office, was one of the speakers. Invited to watch the oral argument in Bowers v. Hardwick, Hendricks spoke at the forum on the history of gay rights.
In 1982, Georgia police officers arrested Michael Hardwick for having consensual sexual relations in his bedroom with another man. Hardwick was not prosecuted, but he still chose to challenge the constitutionality of the Georgia Consensual Sodomy Statute.
The Supreme Court found in favor of Georgia in 1986, upholding the constitutionality of the state’s law.
Jamie Pedersen, co-chair of the national board of directors of Lambda Defense and Education Fund, Inc., was the other speaker at the forum. Pedersen had the opportunity to attend the oral arguments in Lawrence and in Garner v. Texas, a case in which Lambda served as counsel for the plaintiffs. The case led to a Supreme Court ruling that Texas’ Homosexual Conduct Law was unconstitutional, striking down anti-sodomy laws that remained in 13 states.
“Lawrence had to insist on being treated civilly by our society,” Pedersen said. “The majority decision is a great affirmation of the power of the law to make people’s lives better.”
Four of the 13 states with an anti-sodomy law prohibited oral and anal sex between same-sex couples. The remaining states banned consensual sodomy for everyone.
“The petitioners are entitled to respect their private lives,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court’s majority. “The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime.”
Pedersen said he hoped the next step in gay rights will involve gay marriage and military rights. The panel predicted that within one year the Supreme Court will hear a case involving gay marriages.
Lawrence and Garner v. Texas “is an important affirmation of our civil rights,” Pedersen said. “We will have equality and all that implies.”