[3] It based its ruling on the notions of personal autonomy to define one's own relationships and of American traditions of non-interference with any or all forms of private sexual activities between consenting adults.

The Court, with a five-justice majority, overturned its previous ruling on the same issue in the 1986 case Bowers v. Hardwick, where it upheld a challenged Georgia statute and did not find a constitutional protection of sexual privacy.

Lawrence invalidated similar laws throughout the United States that criminalized sodomy between consenting adults acting in private, whatever the sex of the participants.

[6] Its outcome was celebrated by gay rights advocates, and set the stage for further reconsideration of standing law, including the landmark cases of United States v. Windsor (2013), which invalidated Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which recognized same-sex marriage as a fundamental right under the United States Constitution.

When Quinn considered charging them with having sex in violation of state law, he had to get an Assistant District Attorney to check the statutes to be certain they covered sexual activity inside a residence.

He was told that Texas' anti-sodomy statute, the "Homosexual Conduct" law, made it a Class C misdemeanor if someone "engages in deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex".

When the defense attorneys realized that the fine was below the minimum required to permit them to appeal the convictions, they asked the judge to impose a higher penalty.

[39] The attorneys for Texas did not control the amicus briefs submitted in support of their position by representatives of religious and social conservatism, including Jay Alan Sekulow and Robert P. George.

[40] At oral argument on March 26, 2003, Paul M. Smith, an experienced litigator who had argued eight cases before the Supreme Court, spoke on behalf of the plaintiffs.

The Court ruled that Texas's law prohibiting private homosexual activity between consenting adults violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S.

[45] The Court did not describe private sexual activity as a fundamental right requiring the "strict scrutiny" standard of judicial review,[46] but rather focused on why its previous decision in Bowers v. Hardwick had been wrong.

First, the Court stated that its decision in Bowers went against its statements in cases involving child-rearing (Pierce v. Society of Sisters and Meyer v. Nebraska), contraception (Griswold v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Baird), and abortion (Roe v. Wade) that the Constitution protects a right to privacy and personal autonomy.

[47] Combined with the fact that these laws were often unenforced, the Court saw this as constituting a tradition of avoiding interference with private sexual activity between consenting adults.

For this reason, Kennedy stated that there was a jurisprudential basis to think that it should be "an integral part of human freedom" for consenting adults to choose to privately engage in sexual activity.

The Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual.Kennedy reviewed the assumption the court made in Bowers, using the words of Chief Justice Burger's concurring opinion in that case, that "Condemnation of [homosexual practices] is firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards."

He cited the Model Penal Code's recommendations since 1955, the Wolfenden Report of 1957, and a 1981 decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Case 7525/76 Dudgeon v United Kingdom.

[52] O'Connor's concurrence noted that Scalia's dissent conceded that if cases such as Romer v. Evans "have stare decisis effect, Texas' sodomy law would not pass scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause, regardless of the type of rational basis review" applied.

... [T]he Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as a neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed.He cited the majority opinion's concern that the criminalization of sodomy could be the basis for discrimination against homosexuals as evidence that the majority ignored the views of most Americans: So imbued is the Court with the law profession's anti-anti-homosexual culture, that it is seemingly unaware that the attitudes of that culture are not obviously "mainstream"; that in most States what the Court calls "discrimination" against those who engage in homosexual acts is perfectly legal.He continued: "Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means."

The Justice opined that "punishing someone for expressing his sexual preference through noncommercial consensual conduct with another adult does not appear to be a worthy way to expend valuable law enforcement resources".

[56] President George W. Bush's press secretary Ari Fleischer refused to comment on the decision, noting only that the administration had not filed a brief in the case.

[64] Then president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Wilton Gregory, released a statement that the Supreme Court decision was to be deplored.

[68] In Muth v. Frank (2005), a man convicted of criminal behavior by having an incestuous relationship in Wisconsin appealed his ruling in an attempt to apply the logic of sexual privacy in Lawrence.

[70] In Martin v. Ziherl, the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled the state's fornication law unconstitutional relying on Lawrence and the right to privacy.

[71] The Connecticut Supreme Court rejected an argument based on Lawrence that a high school teacher had a constitutional right to engage in sexual activity with his consent-aged students.

[72][73] Upon rehearing Williams v. Pryor after Lawrence, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Alabama's ban on the sale of sex toys.

[75] Joanna Grossman wrote soon after the decision that Lawrence v. Texas should pose no serious obstacle to bestiality prosecutions, because such laws "plainly can be upheld on a 'cruelty to animals' justification.

[79] In 2015, the Erotic Service Provider Legal Education & Research Project (ESPLERP) filed a lawsuit against George Gascon, District Attorney for San Francisco, alleging that the state of California's anti-prostitution laws prevented relations between consenting adults in violation of Lawrence.

Although deciding the case on the basis of the state constitution, Chief Justice Margaret Marshall quoted Lawrence in its second paragraph: "Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.

[91][92][90] In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote, "In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.

[98] In Witt v. Department of the Air Force, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that Lawrence applied intermediate scrutiny.