The U.S. Supreme Court
The rule of stare decisis was abandoned because there were societal changes since the time Bowers v. Hardwick judgment had been passed. In Bowers v. Hardwick it was held that there was no constitutional protection for acts of sodomy and that states had the right to outlaw those practices. The argument used in Bowers v. Hardwick was that the court could not protect rights that were not easily identifiable in the Constitution. Sodomy rights were not explicitly mentioned. The court had held in Bowers v. Hardwick that the right to commit sodomy was not explicitly mentioned in the US constitution. The judge did not want to give the right to sodomy.
Now the rule of stare decisis is a legal principle by which judges are obliged to respect the precedents established by prior decisions. The judges in case of Lawrence v. Texas decided not to stand by the decision in Bowers v. Hardwick and decided to deliver a judgment that was different from the ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick. The judges in Lawrence v. Texas decided not to abide by the precedents. The general rule is that a court should not overturn its own precedents unless there is strong reason to do so. So, it is presumed that there were strong reasons to overturn the ruling of the Supreme Court in Bowers v. Hardwick.
The Bowers v. Hardwick decision was delivered in 1986 in which the constitutionality of the Georgia sodomy law was upheld. The Georgia sodomy law had criminalized oral and anal sex in private between consensual adults, when applied to homosexuals. Now since the judgment in Bowers v. Hardwick was delivered, the attitudes in the society changed. The societys attitudes towards women, sexual orientation, same sex marriage, and marriage in general changed. For example, the society stopped looking down on same sex marriage or homosexuality in general. There developed a positive attitude in the society towards birth control methods, devices, and drugs.
During the seventeen years after the delivery of Bowers v. Hardwick, social norms were established for acceptance of same sex relationship. Along with this the social acceptance of divorces and unmarried persons living together increased. There were more and more people that were seeking same sex relationships and were living together. Even in case of court decisions there was a trend that right to sexual privacy should increase.
Government intrusion into such matters was frowned upon. One state was removing restrictions on sodomy whereas another state was recognizing homosexual relations. The attitudes in the society towards homosexuality were changing. These changes were instrumental in influencing the decision in Lawrence v. Texas.
The major arguments in case of Bowers v. Hardwick were that in the past the court had recognized only the right to engage in procreative sexual activity. The judges in Bowers v. Hardwick pointed out that there the act of homosexual sodomy was looked down upon. It was considered