If
you love John Grisham�s fictional legal thrillers, you�ll
be riveted to Dale Carpenter�s real life page-turner Flagrant
Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas
.
Carpenter is a Law professor at the University
of Minnesota and is involved
with LGBTQ legal issues.
Told from the perspectives of the plaintiffs, arresting officers,
attorneys, judges and prosecutors, Flagrant Conduct
is a detailed account of the 2003 landmark case of
Lawrence v. Texas, in which the U.S. Supreme
Court overturned its 1986 decision in the Bowers v.
Hardwick sodomy case, making same-gender sexual activity
legal throughout the country.
I remember this case vividly. A bogus call to the Houston, Texas police about
a burglary from a prying neighbor resulted in the police
entering the home of John Lawrence and Tyron Garner. The
men were allegedly engaging in consensual sex.
Reports vary wildly on what the officers saw, with one
reporting the men were not even in the same room. The
men were arrested and held overnight in jail. They were
charged with violating the state�s anti-sodomy law. Both
men plead no contest to the charge.
The
man who called the police to report a domestic disturbance,
Robert Eubanks, was later charged with filing a false
police report and spent 15 days in jail.
Writing
in favor of the ruling, Justice
Kennedy stated that �The petitioners are entitled to respect
for their private lives. The State cannot demean their
existence or control their destiny by making their private
sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the
Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage
in their conduct without intervention of the government.
It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm
of personal liberty which the government may not enter.�
It was great to awake on the morning of June 27, 2003, to read
the headlines stating that the highest court of this land
struck down the Texas law that had criminalized sexual relationships
between consenting adults. The Supreme Court�s 6-3 decision
was momentous - especially given the conservative composition
of the court and the reactionary times in which we reside.
To see photos of John Lawrence and Tyron Garner of Houston - the two men who spurred the case - giving
the nation a victory smile signaled, at least legislatively,
a shift in protecting the private lives of lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) Americans.
But for some Americans, the photo of Lawrence and Garner wasn�t
disturbing just because they were two gay men. The silent
issue in the Lawrence v. Texas case was
race. While race was not on trial, it was certainly the
elephant in the room. The interracial component of Garner�s
and Lawrence�s relationship disgusted some folks - black and white - just
as much, if not more, as their homosexuality. Many have
speculated that the false call to the police was motivated
by racism.
For many of these same Americans, this victory was seen as a signed
decree sanctioning sexual depravity. Newsweek that
year reported on its �ick factor,� the revulsion some
heterosexuals feel toward the way we LGBTQ people engage
in sexual intimacy. (Obviously , the Will & Grace
- theory, based on the television sitcom of two gay characters
that aired from 1998 - 2006, that the most important indicator
of supporting LGBTQ civil rights is whether one knows,
has frequent contact or sees frequently someone who is
LGBTQ - had no effect on them.)
While Carpenter successfully depicts that the legal heart of Lawrence
v. Texas is about privacy, that all sexual relationships
- heterosexual and LGBTQ - between consenting adults should
be safe from unwarranted intrusions into our homes by
the government, many still feel, however, that the moral
soul of the issue is that an act of sodomy is an abomination
to God.
Sodomy was a crime defined, according to 18th Century British commentator
William Blackstone, �not fit to be named.� And sodomy
laws once targeted both heterosexuals as well as homosexuals.
The invention of sodomy is rooted in Christian theology. The anti-sodomitic
theological tradition derives from a homophobic and misogynist
reading of the Sodom and Gomorrah
narrative in Genesis 19. As one of the most quoted scriptures
to argue for compulsory heterosexuality, the Sodom
and Gomorrah narrative has become authoritatively damaging
not only to LGBTQ people, but to women as well, because
women are the real victims we read about in the text,
and LGBTQ people are the scapegoats who are read into
the text.
Overturning Texas� sodomy
law marked a new era not only for LGBTQ people, but also
for all Americans. The sanctity of our private sexual
lives must be protected, because the issue of our private
lives is a matter of justice not only to be argued openly
in the courtrooms, but also is a justice issue to be acted
out privately in our bedrooms.
But here�s the melodramatic twist in this landmark case that Carpenter
discloses: the plaintiffs, John Lawrence and Tyron Garner,
weren�t lovers.
As a matter-of-fact, in an act of jealous rage and drunkenness
on the night of September 17, 1998, Tyron Garner�s white
lover, Robert Eubanks, phoned police warning that a black
man was �going crazy with a gun� in John Lawrence�s apartment.
In other words, as The New Yorker writer, Dahlia Lithwick,
wrote in her article Extreme Makeover, �the case
that affirmed the right of gay couples to have consensual
sex in private spaces seems to have involved two men who
were neither a couple nor having sex. In order to appeal
to the conservative Justices on the high court, the story
of a booze-soaked quarrel was repackaged as a love story.
Nobody had to know that the gay-rights case of the century
was actually about three or four men getting drunk in
front of a television in a Harris
County apartment decorated with
bad James Dean erotica.�
When police arrived they arrested Garner, because he was African
American, and Lawrence because it was his apartment.
Both
Lawrence and Garner have died, but their landmark case
will live on in legal perpetuity. What won�t be remember
about them that Carpenter�s Flagrant Conduct reminds
us is that they were accidental plaintiffs with little
to lose in admitting they violated Texas�s sodomy laws.
BlackCommentator.com
Editorial Board member, the Rev. Irene Monroe, is a religion
columnist, theologian, and public speaker. She is the Coordinator of
the African-American Roundtable of the Center for Lesbian and
Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS) at the Pacific
School of Religion. A native of Brooklyn, Rev. Monroe is a
graduate from Wellesley College and Union Theological
Seminary at Columbia University, and served as a pastor
at an African-American church before coming to Harvard
Divinity School for her doctorate as a Ford Fellow. She
was recently named to MSNBC�s list of 10 Black Women You Should Know. Reverend Monroe is the author
of Let Your Light Shine Like a Rainbow Always: Meditations on Bible Prayers for Not�So�Everyday Moments.
As an African-American feminist theologian, she speaks
for a sector of society that is frequently invisible.
Her website
is
irenemonroe.com.
Click here
to contact the Rev. Monroe.
