2 in Sodomy Case Vow to Fight Law

Two men arrested in their bedroom and charged with sodomy were fined $125 each but promised to challenge a Texas law that forbids homosexual conduct. John Lawrence, 55, and Tyrone Garner, 31, pleaded no contest before a Houston area Justice of the Peace, and their attorneys immediately filed an appeal in county criminal court. The two men were arrested after sheriff’s deputies burst into Lawrence’s bedroom on Sept. 17 while investigating what turned out to be a false report of an armed man running amok at Lawrence’s home. Lawrence and Garner spent a night in jail after being charged under a sodomy statute that has been part of the penal code in Texas for more than a century. But it has rarely led to prosecutions in recent years.