Which part of the Fourteenth Amendment did Lawrence v. Texas involve?

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Lawrence v. Texas (2003) involved two specific provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

  • The Due Process Clause: The Supreme Court ruled that the Texas statute violated the due process clause, which protects an individual's liberty and privacy interests. The Court held that the Constitution protects the right of consenting adults to engage in private sexual conduct without government interference.12
  • The Equal Protection Clause: The case was also argued on the grounds that the Texas law violated the equal protection clause, as it criminalized sexual intimacy for same-sex couples while not applying the same restrictions to different-sex couples.1

While Justice Sandra Day O'Connor concurred with the decision based specifically on the equal protection clause, the majority opinion authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy focused primarily on the liberty interests protected by the due process clause to invalidate the law and overturn the precedent set in Bowers v. Hardwick.1