# Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) Decided **June 30, 1986**, 5–4 (White joined by Burger, Powell, Rehnquist, O'Connor). The Supreme Court **upheld** Georgia's criminal sodomy statute as applied to consensual same-sex conduct in private, holding that the Constitution does not confer "a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy." ## What Happened Michael Hardwick was arrested in his Atlanta bedroom in August 1982 when an Atlanta police officer — sent to deliver a warrant for an unpaid public-drinking ticket — was let into the apartment by a houseguest and walked in on Hardwick having sex with another man. The Fulton County DA declined to prosecute, but Hardwick sued in federal court to have the Georgia sodomy statute declared unconstitutional. The Eleventh Circuit ruled in his favor; the Supreme Court reversed. ## The Majority Opinion Justice Byron White's majority opinion framed the question narrowly — whether the Constitution confers a "fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy" — and answered no. The opinion relied heavily on the historical fact that sodomy had been criminal under English common law and in most American states from the founding through the 20th century. Chief Justice Warren Burger's concurrence added even harsher language: *"To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching."* ## The Dissent and the Reversal Justice Harry Blackmun's dissent (joined by Brennan, Marshall, Stevens) framed the question very differently — as a right to privacy and personal autonomy in intimate matters — and predicted the decision would be reversed. Justice [[Lewis Powell]], who provided the deciding fifth vote, later publicly stated in a 1990 speech that he "probably made a mistake" in *Bowers*. Blackmun himself said the dissent was not principally his. In a 1995 oral history with Harold Koh he credited his clerk [[Pamela Karlan]] — later a two-time Justice Department civil rights official — with most of the writing, saying she "did a lot of very effective writing" and that he owed "a lot to her and her ability in getting that dissent out." The decision stood as the law of the land for **17 years** — the canonical example of a major Supreme Court setback for LGBTQ rights. It was **explicitly overruled** by [[Lawrence v. Texas]] (2003), in unusually direct language from Justice Kennedy: *"Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today. It ought not to remain binding precedent. Bowers v. Hardwick should be and now is overruled."* ## Place in the Vault *Bowers* is the **canonical low point** of modern American LGBTQ jurisprudence and the case that defined what [[Lambda Legal]] and the LGBTQ legal-strategy movement had to overcome for the next two decades. The 17-year arc from *Bowers* (1986) to *Lawrence* (2003) is the most-cited example of strategic-litigation patience under hostile-Court conditions. --- ## See Also - [[Lawrence v. Texas]] — the 2003 decision that overruled *Bowers* - [[Queer Liberation Ecosystem]] - [[Queer Liberation Timeline]]