.

             In arguing his case, Hardwick cited as support a case in which the Court had held that the First Amendment prevented conviction for possessing and reading obscene material in the privacy of one's home. The Court did not equate the right to read pornographic material in one's home with the right of homosexual men to engage in consensual sexual acts in their own home. Consequently, the Georgia statute was upheld. In Lawrence v. Texas, responding to a reported weapons disturbance in a private residence, the Houston police entered Lawrence's apartment and saw him and another adult man, engaging in a private, consensual sexual act. Petitioners were arrested and convicted of deviate sexual intercourse in violation of a Texas statute forbidding two persons of the same sex to engage in certain intimate sexual conduct. The Court applied the ruling of Bowers to the case, considering many different points. The Court held that the Bowers decision was incorrect, and ruled that the Texas statute making it a crime for two persons of the same sex to engage in certain intimate sexual conduct violated the Due Process Clause. .

             In its opinion in Lawrence, the Court stated that resolution of the case depended on whether the petitioners were free as adults to engage in private conduct in the exercise of their liberty under the Due Process Clause. The Court stated that the language of the Texas statute sought to control a personal relationship that, whether or not entitled to formal recognition in the law, is within the liberty of persons to choose without being punished as criminals. The Court added that the liberty protected by the Constitution allows homosexual persons the right to choose to enter upon relationships in the confines of their homes and their own private lives and still retain their dignity as free persons. The Lawrence Court stated that the Bowers Court misapprehended the liberty claim presented to it.