#lawrence v texas

[actual-sleeping-beauty]

sorry but it's just like. exceedingly fucking clear to me that republican controlled state legislatures across the country are testing how far they can go right now. bills like tennessee house bill 0009, kentucky house bill 173, and kentucky senate bill 150 are intended to see how far the current political and judicial climate will allow them to restrict the rights of queer people. republicans did this for a little over a decade before they got roe overturned. (source: the first heartbeat bill was filed in ohio in 2011.)

they are setting up to challenge obergefell and lawrence v. texas. the majority opinion of roe cites the due process clause of the fourteenth amendement, arguing that abortion bans violate a right to privacy. obergefell guarantees the right of same-sex couples to marry through the due process clause and the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment. the majority opinion argues that marriage is a private decision the state cannot intrude on, citing loving v. virginia (also based on the due process and equal protection clauses of the fourteenth amendment). the equal protection clause protects same-sex couples from being barred from marrying while their opposite-sex peers can marry freely. the majority opinion of lawrence v. texas cites the due process clause as granting same-sex couples a "protected liberty interest" to have private sexual relations. in a concurrence, justice sandra day o'connor cites the equal protection clause as the reason gay sex should be decriminalized. (note: in some states only same sex intercourse between men was criminalized. in others same sex intercourse between women was also criminalized. in still others anal sex was criminalized regardless of whether the participants were of the same or opposite sex. the texas law being challenged in lawrence criminalized anal and oral sex between men only. the lawrence case made it legal for same-sex couple to have sex for the first time in FOURTEEN STATES. that's 28% of the country.)

bills like tn hb 0009 (which would criminalize "male or female impersonators" (i.e. drag performers) from performing in public; a second offense would be a FELONY), ky hb 173 (a don't say gay bill that would "establish limitations on school personnel related to instruction and discussion on sexual orientation, sexual preference, or gender expression," among other fucked up things), and ky sb 150 (which would force schools to out trans and nonbinary kids to their parents and prohibit schools from making teachers use kids' preferred pronouns) are clearly pushing at the limits of legality. they are trying to get the supreme court to uphold these laws when they are challenged so the conservative supreme court can say that according to historical precedent (cited in overturning roe) and publicly agreed upon morality (cited in bowers v. hardwick, a case that upheld georgia's sodomy law in 1986, which also cited historical precedent). whether publicly agreed upon morality actually condemns queer people is unlikely to matter, given the current leanings of the court.

this is all to say: we have to start paying very close attention. a felony charge means you can't vote. they are trying to make sure we can't vote. we have to start calling our legislators. we have to start engaging our politically unengaged friends. we have to. they are coming for us. they are playing the long game. we need to too.

i spent multiple hours researching this and i would appreciate reblogs. it feels like we have come to this crisis point so quickly. obergefell isn't even a decade old. we cannot be comfortable and we must act.

[lizardgoats]

In the early years, people with AIDS had no protections of any kind. Homosexuality itself was still illegal—and sodomy laws would not be repealed until 2003 in the Supreme Court ruling Lawrence v. Texas. There was no antidiscrimination legislation, no gay rights bill in New York City, no benefits, no qualifying for insurance or social services. There were no treatments. Particularly gruesome was that surviving partners or roommates were not allowed to inherit leases that had been in the dead person's name.

The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination, by Sarah Schulman

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Susan Rinkunas at Jezebel:

It’s been a pretty relentless news cycle these past few months and unfortunately, Kim Davis has decided to come crawling back into the headlines to make it worse.

The former Kentucky county clerk—who became infamous for denying marriage licenses to gay couples after the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges—is now arguing in federal court that Obergefell should be overturned, for the same reasons the high court shredded Roe v. Wade in 2022. Davis is appealing a jury’s 2023 decision that she should have to pay $100,000 to a gay couple to whom she denied a marriage license. Davis argued that granting a license to David Ermold and David Moore in 2015 violated her religious beliefs; a deputy clerk eventually gave them a license. (The case is called Ermold v. Davis.) In a brief to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, her lawyers argue that “Obergefell should be overturned for the same reasons articulated by the court in Dobbs”—mainly that it “was wrong when it was decided and it is wrong today because it was based entirely on the ‘legal fiction’ of substantive due process, which lacks any basis in the Constitution.”

This is a regurgitation of Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurrence in the Dobbs case that overturned Roe in which he argued that the court should overrule not only marriage equality but also the right to same-sex intimacy (Lawrence v. Texas, 2003) and the right for married couples to use birth control (Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965). Thomas called these substantive due process decisions “demonstrably erroneous.” While no other Justice joined that writing, Justices Thomas, Samuel Alito, and John Roberts all dissented in Obergefell, which was a 5-4 ruling. It’s well within the realm of possibility that, on this 6-3 court, there are four votes to hear a marriage equality case and five votes to overturn Obergefell. (Davis’ brief says her appeal demonstrates the need to “reconsider” Lawrence and Griswold as well.)

[...] Davis is being represented by Florida-based Liberty Counsel, a firm that opposes the state’s abortion ballot measure. The group said that, if it passed, they would ask the state Supreme Court to declare fetal personhood or a total abortion ban. Liberty Counsel chairman Mat Staver told Bloomberg Law in April: “We have an open door to go back and establish personhood.” He added, “The Florida Supreme Court isn’t out of the picture yet.” Staver told Bloomberg that if the tactic works in Florida, it could be used as a strategy across the country as nearly all state constitutions have “right to life” language. (Staver has represented Davis since at least 2015, when he compared her to a Jewish person living in Nazi Germany.)

Infamous homophobic Rowan County, Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis is teeing up a case for the MAGA Majority on SCOTUS to hear the Ermold v. Davis case that seeks to overturn not just Obergefell v. Hodges, but also Lawrence v. Texas and Griswold v. Connecticut.

[gwydionmisha]

Our movement must be intersectional. we must all have each other's backs. Leave no one's rights behind.

[audley-and-cherry]

And also also! Remember that since Roe fell, we have no effective right to privacy anymore. There's no reason to think that Lawrence isn't in their crosshairs too or that this SCOTUS won't immediately overturn it, given the chance.

Just thinking about how republicans are going after normie sex shit like “internet porn” and “dildos” now

we fucking told y'all

[jelliclebellsthatjelliclesring]

Happy anniversary to Lawrence v Texas and Obergefell v Hodges

Without them gay marriage wouldn’t be a federal right, and Homosexuality would still be illegal in some states under sodomy laws

[elskanellis]

When I was a child, multiple adults in my social circle were forcibly outed via the “getting arrested for cruising in the park at night” method and it always ended in tragedy. Just their whole lives blew up. At least one literally did not survive the scandal. And this was even before the AIDS panic reached my very small town in the shallow south.

Which is to say: this chapter of our history is literally within living memory for an awful lot of people. We are not exaggerating.

I have full confidence that things will get better, legally and socially, but I really think it will take long enough to get better, that in the meantime a lot of people will be significantly hurt. And it’s already happening: if you are queer: even if you are cis: even if you are confident or certain you don’t need abortion or contraception: anti-trans laws and anti-abortion laws are already coming for you, because they are all about this kind of control. And anti-sodomy laws are just another brick in the wall they want to build, to contain us and to keep us separate from our joy.

Anyway with anti-sodomy laws back on the discussion table I'm going to repeat that you can personally be squicked out by the consensual sex someone else has, but saying that their consensual sex between willing, active, adult participants should be illegal and is indicative of some sort of moral failing is L I T E R A L L Y a major facet in extreme homophobia and absolutely has gotten people killed.

You don't have to like their business but as long as everyone involved in the encounter is saying yes, it's also really not your business.

This is the precident you are helping further by digging your heels in and saying 'but I think it's gross and makes them bad people'. This is what happened last time that was the reasoning for law, and what is being threatened to happen again.

[mariacallous]

 Our Nation has made tremendous progress in advancing the cause of equality for LGBTQI+ Americans, including in the military.  Despite their courage and great sacrifice, thousands of LGBTQI+ service members were forced out of the military because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.  Many of these patriotic Americans were subject to a court-martial.  While my Administration has taken meaningful action to remedy these problems, the impact of that historical injustice remains.  As Commander in Chief, I am committed to maintaining the finest fighting force in the world.  That means making sure that every member of our military feels safe and respected.

     Accordingly, acting pursuant to the grant of authority in Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution of the United States, I, Joseph R. Biden Jr., do hereby grant a full, complete, and unconditional pardon to persons convicted of unaggravated offenses based on consensual, private conduct with persons age 18 and older under former Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), as previously codified at 10 U.S.C. 925, as well as attempts, conspiracies, and solicitations to commit such acts under Articles 80, 81, and 82, UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. 880, 881, 882.  This proclamation applies to convictions during the period from Article 125’s effective date of May 31, 1951, through the December 26, 2013, enactment of section 1707 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 (Public Law 113-66).

     The purpose of this proclamation is to pardon only offenses based on consensual, private conduct between individuals 18 and older that do not involve any aggravating factor, including:  

     (1)  conduct that would violate 10 U.S.C. 893a, prohibiting activities with military recruits or trainees by a person in a position of special trust;      (2)  conduct that was committed with an individual who was coerced or, because of status, might not have felt able to refuse consent;      (3)  conduct on the part of the applicant constituting fraternization under Article 134 of the UCMJ;      (4)  conduct committed with the spouse of another military member; or      (5)  any factors other than those listed above that were identified by the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in United States v. Marcum as being outside the scope of Lawrence v. Texas as applied in the military context, 60 M.J. 198, 207–08 (2004).

     The Military Departments (Army, Navy, or Air Force), or in the case of the Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the Department of Justice, shall provide information about and publicize application procedures for certificates of pardon.  An applicant for a certificate of pardon under this proclamation is to submit an application to the Military Department (Army, Navy, or Air Force) that conducted the court-martial or, in the case of a Coast Guard court-martial, to the Department of Homeland Security.  If the relevant Department determines that the applicant satisfies the criteria under this proclamation, following a review of relevant military justice records, the Department shall submit that determination to the Attorney General, acting through the Pardon Attorney, who shall then issue a certificate of pardon along with information on the process to apply for an upgrade of military discharge.  My Administration strongly encourages veterans who receive a certificate of pardon to apply for an upgrade of military discharge.  

     Although the pardon under this proclamation applies only to the convictions described above, there are other LGBTQI+ individuals who served our Nation and were convicted of other crimes because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.  It is the policy of my Administration to expeditiously consider and to make final pardon determinations with respect to such individuals.

     IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-sixth day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-eighth.                              JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

[carsonjonesfiance]

In 1998, Texas police broke into the house of a gay man and his boyfriend and arrested them for sodomy. It was not until 2003 that these convictions would be overturned as part of the Lawrence v Texas ruling. If you are in your 20s chances are you are older than gay sex being federally legal. Keep that in mind when Clarence Thomas retires in a year hoping to get a likeminded replacement.

[misseyres]

the thing that gets me so riled about the florida stuff isn’t just the blatant fascism and anti-trans, anti-women agenda. it’s that this is a war against any type of difference. and soon that’s gonna spread to the neurodivergent, to the disabled, to the chronically ill, to minority religions, to any type of difference you can imagine. it’s more than just queer people and women and book bans. soon it’s going to be about ADA, and voting rights, and the right to privacy. this is about the fundamental rights of life and liberty.

[machine-saint]

"we don't need free speech, we need to [two things that require exercise of free speech]"

to say nothing of all the book ban attempts, laws against drag shows on the basis that they're "harmful to minors" or other bullshit, etc etc

it feels like some fragments of leftist discourse have abandoned "free speech" as though it were a dog whistle for being right-wing and that's distressing

"Trans people don't need 'Free speech' . We need to... Organize, Mobilize, Make-Out"

Stickers spotted in the UW campus in Seattle

[socialistexan]

Hey, remember 10 years ago when Marriage Equality was upheld and a bunch of cis LGB people decided that they got theirs so fuck everyone else, but especially trans people?

Remember when they acted like trans rights being the next big target meant that their rights were safe and they decided to either a) check out, keep their heads low, and allow trans people to die on the alter; or b) actively joined the fight against trans rights in a misguided attempt to get in good with their oppressors.

This is a wake up call to those people. You aren't safe either, you never were. Once they started winning victories against us trans folks they were going to come after you, but this time with the cultural momentum (and 3 more SCOTUS Justices) they didn't have last time.

Lawrence v Texas is on the chopping block, you better pay fucking attention.

[not100bees]

I don't think gay people are going to be thrown into elaborate hunger games-esque scenarios, but don't think it's outlandish to be concerned about Obergefell or even Lawrence v. Texas.

[samwisethewitch]

I think at the end of the day, the solution is for queer people (especially those of us who are younger and/or more able-bodied) to create these queer spaces and social systems. And it doesn't have to be big! Most of us don't have the resources to open a gay bar, but we can do small things.

My partner and I make a point of having an extra sleeping space in every home we live in, just in case one of our friends ever needs a place to crash. We have made a decision that none of our queer friends will be homeless if we can help it. When a friend is sick, or has a baby, or is recovering from top surgery, I cook for them and take them meals. When a friend experienced transphobic harassment at work, several of us who had been in similar situations or had worked in HR helped them make an action plan to deal with it. I work in the same building as my sister, who recently transitioned, and I make a point to use her correct name and pronouns and to gently correct people who accidentally misgender her, because as a cis person it's less of a social risk for me to speak up than for her. These things are all small, but they add up.

If you want queer people to have in-person community, you gotta start doing community building.

Something I do grieve a little bit, especially as I study queer history and connect deeper with queer ancestors, is that the LGBTQ+ community is now almost entirely online and/or only at big events like Pride. It feels like as queerness becomes most accepted in the mainstream (which is a good thing!!!) there are fewer and fewer physical spaces that are explicitly dedicated to supporting, protecting, and celebrating queer identities. And even when there are physical spaces set aside for us, fewer and fewer young queer people are choosing to engage them.

Like, I know intentional communities are more associated with leftism and environmentalism now, but that used to be the only real option for openly queer people. When it was legal for landlords to evict you and for employers to fire you because you were gay, or a lesbian, or transgender, banding together was the only way to survive. If someone owned property or benefited from generational wealth, they opened their home to people in the community who needed a place to stay. People who were able-bodied enough to work went to work (and a lot of them were sex workers, and that's an important part of our history). People who couldn't work helped out in whatever way they could, and a lot of queer political organization was done by disabled and mentally ill folks who were out of work, or who were working and organizing while being sick.

Queer people created parallel social structures when the mainstream system wouldn't let them participate. The queer community birthed its own spiritual leaders, its own healers, its own philosophers, its own bodyguards and protectors. If someone had a need, someone else probably had the skills or resources to help.

I think a lot of us have forgotten that there would have been no Stonewall, no GLF, no AIDS activism without those webs of community support and organization formed out of necessity. Stonewall happened because the queer community in Greenwich Village in the 1960s was united under oppression and already had the systems in place necessary for organizing. The reason we have gay rights now (such as they are) is because our queer elders chose to take care of each other. And it does make me deeply sad that we seem to have abandoned that tradition of community-building in the last couple of decades.

[bucksboobs]

The main focus should be women’s reproductive rights, protecting immigrants and trans people but it’s worth pointing out that in Clarence Thomas’s assenting opinion to the overturn of Roe V Wade, he named three other rulings that he thinks the Supreme Court should “reconsider” essentially laying out what the next targets should be and they were

Griswold: the right to contraception and abortion pills

Lawrence v Texas: the right to privacy as it pertains to consenting adults (i.e. the legalization of same sex relationships)

Obergefell v Hodges: the right to marriage for same sex couples.

If you are any flavor of LGB (trans people already know they’re in MAGA’s sights) know that we are next and it’s up to us to support the frontlines.

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

What do you need to know about lgbt+ history as a lgbt+ person? 

Well, if you ask like that: nothing, actually. You do not disqualify from being lgbt+ if you know nothing about history whatsoever. There’s no exam to pass. 

It also doesn’t make you a bad person or a disgrace to the community or an embarrassment if you haven’t heard about a specific chapter of lgbt+ history yet - saying so would be really unfair! Maybe you live in a situation in which you don’t feel safe to do a lot of research on lgbt+ related stuff. Maybe you are a young person growing up in hard times and you’re busy just surviving. Maybe your brain works in a way that makes it harder for you to learn or retain new information than for others. Or hey, maybe you already know lots - but your learning simply focused on a different chapter than the one that hypothetical exam would be on!

Of course there are many benefits to learning about lgbt+ history. You get the general benefits of learning new things (such as training your critical thinking skills, which will help you in your everyday life, and even supporting your brain health!) but there’s also specific benefits to learning about this specific subject.

History isn’t all “learning boring stuff about dead people” - learning about past events and their consequences also helps you understand present events and gauge their potential consequences for your future. This will for example empower you in your voting decisions (or help you understand how politics influence everyday life at all, if that’s your starting point!). 

Knowledge about lgbt+ history also helps you to notice misinformation more easily and enables you to counteract homophobic myths with facts. 

It may even help you on a more personal level: reading up on all the people who came before you can foster a sense of identity and belonging. It might make you feel more confident to know that people like you have been around forever and have achieved so many things! 

So, rather than “what do I need to know”, I think the much better question is “where do I want to start?”. 

Nobody knows everything about lgbt+ history (or about any given topic, really!) and unrealistic expectations will only set you up for disappointment. It’s best to let your curiosity lead you! You’re much more likely to actually read up on something you are genuinely excited to learn about than something you’ve only been told to read. 

With that in mind: it can feel overwhelming to pick a topic to start with! Especially if you’re pretty new to lgbt+ history, you may not even know where to start. So I do want to make some suggestions here. Not as a “you need to research all these today or else I’m revoking your license to gay”, just to spark your curiosity! I will not add explanations right here in the post, I just want to give you some terms you can easily put in the search bar. (Important: these are in random order, not ranked by importance or anything like that!) 

US-Centric lgbt+ History

1. Stonewall Riots

2. Harvey Milk

3. Marsha P. Johnson

4. Sylvia Rivera

5. The Lavender Scare

6. Obergefell v. Hodges

7. Don't Ask, Don't Tell

8. The Mattachine Society

9. The Daughters of Bilitis

11. The AIDS crisis

12. Bayard Rustin

13. Lawrence v. Texas

14. The Gay Liberation Front

15. The Human Rights Campaign

European lgbt+ History

1. Section 28 (UK)

2. Oscar Wilde

3. Alan Turing

4. Magnus Hirschfeld

5. Paragraph 175 (Germany)

6. The Homomonument (Netherlands)

7. EuroPride

8. James Barry

9. The decriminalization of homosexuality in the UK (1967)

10. ILGA-Europe

11. Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986 (New Zealand, part of the Commonwealth)

12. The Equality Act 2010 (UK)

13. Transgender Europe (TGEU)

14. The first same-sex marriage in the Netherlands (2001)

15. Dora Richter

Have fun learning! 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Dad 

P.S: You may wonder “But what about places other than the USA or Europe?” (or those of you who already know a lot about lgbt+ history, “but what about (topic I haven’t mentioned here)”) - and that’s actually a really great point! It highlights what we talked about above: nobody knows everything + lgbt+ history is way too rich of a topic to put it all into one short list! This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list of everything important, just some potential starting points that hopefully lead you to topics beyond ones mentioned on this list.