Two States with Universal Sodomy Laws Consider High Court Ruling
The
Advocate, June 27, 2003
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down a ban on gay
sex wipes out a 198-year-old Louisiana sodomy law that applied to everyone,
regardless of sexual orientation, according to an attorney who has been
fighting the law. On a 6-3 vote, the high court ruled that Texas’s sodomy
law—which applied only to gays—was an unconstitutional violation of
privacy. Texas and three other states banned sex acts between only people of
the same sex. Louisiana is one of nine states that banned consensual oral and
anal sex for everyone. By reversing a 1986 ruling that allowed a sodomy law
similar to the Texas law, the court negated all state sodomy laws, regardless
of whether they covered just gays or both gays and heterosexuals, said John
Rawls, an attorney representing the Louisiana Electorate of Gays and Lesbians.
“It’s a home run. It’s all gone,” Rawls said. “It means that there
is no longer a legal basis for denying lesbian and gay people equality before
the law.”
The Louisiana attorney general’s office was analyzing
the state law and the high court’s ruling and did not immediately comment.
Last year the Louisiana supreme court shot down two challenges to the state
sodomy law. In one ruling the court ruled that the law did not violate the
privacy clause of the state constitution. During this year’s legislative
session a state senate committee approved legislation repealing the law, but
the measure died without further action being taken.
Meanwhile, Alabama attorney general Bill Pryor, who wrote
a brief supporting the Texas law, issued a brief statement Thursday saying the
ruling is a “new interpretation of the Constitution.” He said the decision
means that Alabama’s sodomy law, “which prohibits consensual sodomy
between unmarried persons, is now unenforceable.” Pryor is being considered
for a seat on the 11th circuit U.S. court of appeals. In a highly publicized
case last year, Alabama chief justice Roy Moore cited the Alabama law and what
he called the “inherent evil” of homosexuality in upholding a lower court
ruling rejecting a lesbian mother’s request for custody of her three
children. The president of the Christian Coalition of Alabama, John Giles,
said that while personal privacy should be protected, he is concerned that the
Supreme Court decision will further a national campaign to legalize marriage
between gays. “God have mercy on America,” said Giles.
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