Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Judging Sodom: Gay Identity In Bowers, Romer & Lawrence, Logan Steele

WWU Graduate School Collection

This paper presents a novel method for understanding how the Supreme Court constructs identities. Applying Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality to pivotal Supreme Court decisions which solidified gay identity were analyzed using Bowers v. Hardwick, Romer v. Evans, and Lawrence v. Texas. The results of this investigation show that the Court’s construction of gay identity changed with each case, sculpted by what they perceived at the time as most productive for American society. The work presented here has profound implications for the future study of the Supreme Court and contributes to our understanding of the workings of institutions in the …