ABSTRACT
On June 26, 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Lawrence v. Texas, 1 declaring that a Texas law that criminalized homosexual sodomy ran afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, and was thus unconstitutional. To many, the decision in Lawrence was a surprise. After all, it was unusual for a conservative Court to support the privacy interests of same-sex couples. To others, the decision was not nearly as shocking as it verified the ability of interest groups to shape judicial decision making. The case was litigated by Lambda Legal, one of the nation’s premier LGBT public interest law firms, and numerous organizations filed amicus curiae briefs urging the Court to strike down the sodomy law, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Psychological Association, and the Cato Institute.
