Up to Lawrence v. Texas
Colin Talley argues that the sodomy statutes in colonial America in the 17th century were largely unenforced. The reason he argues is that male-male eroticism did not threaten the social structure or challenge the gendered division of labor or the patriarchal ownership of wealth. [2] There were gay men on General Washington's staff and among the leaders of the new republic, [3] even though in Virginia there was a maximum penalty of death for sodomy. In 1779, Thomas Jefferson tried to reduce the maximum punishment to castration. [4] It was rejected by the Virginia legislature. [5] Justice Anthony Kennedy authoring the majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas stated that American laws targeting same-sex couples did not develop until the last third of the 20th century and also wrote that: [6]
Early American sodomy laws were not directed at homosexuals as such but instead sought to prohibit nonprocreative sexual activity more generally, whether between men and women or men and men. Moreover, early sodomy laws seem not to have been enforced against consenting adults acting in private. Instead, sodomy prosecutions often involved predatory acts against those who could not or did not consent: relations between men and minor girls or boys, between adults involving force, between adults implicating disparity in status, or between men and animals.
In 1950, New York enacted a new statute that divided the crime of sodomy into 3 degrees. First degree sodomy, with a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment, is defined as being done by force as in rape, or an act with an animal or a dead body. Second degree sodomy, with a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment, includes acts per os or per anum by a person over 21 years old with a person under 18 years old. Third degree sodomy, which is a misdemeanor with a maximum of 6 months in prison, is any act per os or per anum not amounting to first or second degree sodomy. With this new law, New York became the first state to reduce the crime of sodomy from a felony to a misdemeanor. A psychopathic offender law was included with this statute, but covered only sexual acts with minors or with the use of force or threats. In 1950, the Attorney General issued an opinion that the governing sodomy law covered both participants in an act of fellatio, the wording of the law being broader for oral sex than for anal. This opinion would be affirmed by a court interpretation more than a decade later.
In 1965, New York enacted a new statute repealing the crime of sodomy. Due to opposition to repealing the crime of sodomy, New York enacted a new statute at the same time that criminalized sodomy and reduced the maximum penalty from 6 months to 3 months, and excluded married couples. It created the category of sexual misconduct, defined as engaging in sexual intercourse with another person without such person's consent and engaging in sexual conduct with an animal or a dead human body, which became a class A misdemeanor. Since the new statute repealing the crime of sodomy would only be effective on September 1, 1967, it never took effect.
Prior to 1962, sodomy was a felony in every state punished by a lengthy term of imprisonment or hard labor. In that year, the Model Penal Code (MPC) — developed by the American Law Institute to promote uniformity among the states as they modernized their statutes — struck a compromise that removed consensual sodomy from its criminal code while making it a crime to solicit for sodomy. In 1962, Illinois adopted the recommendations of the Model Penal Code and thus became the first state to remove criminal penalties for consensual sodomy from its criminal code, [7] almost a decade before any other state. Over the years, many of the states that did not repeal their sodomy laws had enacted legislation reducing the penalty.
On March 12, 1971, the Idaho House of Representatives voted was 55-5 in favor of House Bill 161, which enacted the entire Model Penal Code (MPC) in Idaho, which included repealing common-law crimes and the "crime against nature" law. The bill passed the Idaho Senate on March 25, 1971 and the vote was 34-1. It was signed on April 9, 1971 by Governor Cecil Andrus. It took effect on January 1, 1972. On January 25, 1972, the Idaho House voted was 44-28 in favor of House Bill 101, which repealed the provisions of House Bill 161, which had adopted the MPC. The bill passed the Idaho Senate on March 27, 1972 and the vote was 30-5. It was signed on March 27, 1972 by Governor Cecil Andrus. It took effect on April 1, 1972. On March 22, 1972, the Idaho House voted was 49-15 in favor of House Bill 59, which restored a criminal code framework after the repeal of House Bill 161, which included reinstating common-law crimes and reintroduced the felony "crime against nature" law, which included a minimum five-year penalty with no maximum limit. The bill passed the Idaho Senate on February 1, 1972 and the vote was 34-1. It was signed on February 18, 1972 by Governor Cecil Andrus. It took effect on April 1, 1972.
At the time of the Lawrence decision in 2003, the penalty for violating a sodomy law varied widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction among those states retaining their sodomy laws. The harshest penalties were in Idaho, where a person convicted of sodomy could earn a life sentence. Michigan followed, with a maximum penalty of 15 years' imprisonment while repeat offenders got life. [8] By 2002, 36 states had repealed their sodomy laws or their courts had overturned them. By the time of the 2003 Supreme Court decision, the laws in most states were no longer enforced or were enforced very selectively. The continued existence of these rarely enforced laws on the statute books, however, are often cited as justification for discrimination against gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals.
On June 26, 2003, the United States Supreme Court struck down in the Lawrence v. Texas decision the following jurisdictions (14 US states, 1 US territory and the Uniform Code of Military Justice) that statutes criminalized consensual sodomy: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri (rest of the state outside of the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District), North Carolina, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Texas, United States Armed Forces, Utah and Virginia. On June 26, 2003, at the time of the Lawrence v. Texas decision, the following jurisdictions (20 US states, 1 US territory and the Uniform Code of Military Justice) had statutes criminalizing consensual sodomy: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Texas, United States Armed Forces, Utah and Virginia.
Post Lawrence v. Texas
In 2005, Puerto Rico repealed its sodomy law, and in 2006, Missouri repealed its law against "homosexual conduct". In 2013, Montana removed "sexual contact or sexual intercourse between two persons of the same sex" from its definition of deviate sexual conduct, Virginia repealed its lewd and lascivious cohabitation statute, and sodomy was legalized in the US armed forces. In 2005, basing its decision on Lawrence, the Supreme Court of Virginia in Martin v. Ziherl invalidated § 18.2-344, the Virginia statute making fornication between unmarried persons a crime. [9]
On January 31, 2013, the Senate of Virginia passed a bill repealing § 18.2-345, the lewd and lascivious cohabitation statute enacted in 1877. On February 20, 2013, the Virginia House of Delegates passed the bill by a vote of 62 to 25 votes. On March 20, 2013, Governor Bob McDonnell signed the repeal of the lewd and lascivious cohabitation statute from the Code of Virginia. [10] On March 12, 2013, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit struck down § 18.2-361, the crimes against nature statute. On March 26, 2013, Attorney General of Virginia Ken Cuccinelli filed a petition to have the case reheard en banc , but the Court denied the request on April 10, 2013, with none of its 15 judges supporting the request. [11] On June 25, Cuccinelli filed a petition for certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Court of Appeals decision, which was rejected on October 7. [12] [13]
On February 7, 2014, the Virginia Senate voted 40-0 in favor of revising the crimes against nature statute to remove the ban on same-sex sexual relationships. On March 6, 2014, the Virginia House of Delegates voted 100-0 in favor of the bill. On April 7, the Governor submitted a slightly different version of the bill. It was enacted by the legislature on April 23, 2014. The law took effect upon passage. [14] On February 26, 2019, the Utah legislature voted to eliminate the crime of sodomy between consenting adults. [15] Governor Gary Herbert signed the bill into law on March 26, 2019. [16] [17]
On May 23, 2019, the Alabama House of Representatives passed, with 101 voting yea and 3 absent, Alabama Senate Bill 320, repealing the ban on "deviate sexual intercourse". On May 28, 2019, the Alabama State Senate passed Alabama Senate Bill 320, with 32 yea and 3 absent. The bill took effect on September 1, 2019. [18] [19] Alabama is the southernmost continental state to repeal their sodomy law as of 2023.
On March 18, 2020, the Maryland legislature voted to repeal its sodomy law. The bill became law in May 2020 without the signature of Governor Larry Hogan . [20] While the original text of the bill intended to repeal both the state's sodomy law and unnatural or perverted sexual practice law, amendments from the Maryland Senate urged to solely repeal the sodomy law. [21] On March 31, 2023, the Maryland legislature voted to repeal the unnatural and perverted sexual practice law. The bill was sent to Governor Wes Moore for signature. As he did not veto the bill within 30 days of passage, Moore allowed for the bill to become law without his signature, and the repeal took effect on October 1, 2023. [22]
In March 2022, Idaho repealed its sodomy law. [23] The repeal was a result of a lawsuit brought on in September 2020 by a plaintiff known as John Doe. John Doe alleged his constitutional rights were violated when he was forced to register as a sex offender upon moving to Idaho due to a conviction for "oral sex" 2 decades prior. [24] On May 17, 2023, the Minnesota legislature passed an Omnibus Judiciary and Public Safety Bill that included provisions repealing the state's sodomy, adultery, fornication, and abortion laws. On May 19, Governor Tim Walz signed the bill into law. It took effect the following day. [25]
As of October 1, 2023, the following jurisdictions (12 U.S. states) had statutes criminalizing consensual sodomy: Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. These statutes penalties are not enforceable due to the binding precedent of Lawrence v. Texas, meaning consensual sodomy cannot be prosecuted. [26]
