The Story of Lawrence v. Texas

In what was seen as a great victory for gay rights the Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), LII link, overruling a case decided less than two decades earlier, Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), LII link.

Professor Peter Nicolas  reviews (in the Washington Independent Review of Books) Flagrant Conduct, a new book about the case. He concludes:

Carpenter’s book is exhaustively researched, extraordinarily well written and difficult to put down. With Flagrant Conduct, he has injected a good dose of the real world into one of the most important legal cases in the fight for gay and lesbian equality. Moreover, he has revealed the often hidden costs of the “perfect” test case and, in doing so, has shed needed light on both the benefits and the burdens of impact litigation.

Dale Carpenter, Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas: How a Bedroom Arrest Decriminalized Gay Americans (2012). Catalog record (Gallagher's copy is on order).  Publisher's page.