Senate Committee Votes to Repeal Louisiana Sodomy Law
Courts in other states have already jettisoned laws
over last 20 years
Shreveport
Times, May 28, 2003
The Associated Press
BATON ROUGE—Louisiana’s
19th-century anti-sodomy law, the subject of past unsuccessful court and
legislative challenges, was struck down in a Senate committee Tuesday.
Tuesday’s bill, by Sen. Lynn Dean, R-Braithwaite, makes
legal private, consensual sex that is otherwise illegal—what the current law
calls a “crime against nature.”
Two years ago, a similar bill was defeated in the House
of Representatives after making it through committee. Last fall a state
appeals court upheld the 197-year-old law.
Tuesday’s bill survived critical testimony from
conservative activists, and may even have been helped by it. Senator Paulette
Irons, D-New Orleans, was attacked by one of the witnesses, Pat Harris of New
Orleans, for supporting a “gay rights platform.”
Harris refused to identify herself further after the
meeting.
Her observation provoked a furious rebuttal from Irons,
and the announcement from Sen. Greg Tarver, D-Shreveport, that he would vote
for the bill because a fellow senator had been attacked.
“During my duration here in the legislature, I’ve
always voted against these laws,” Tarver said. “You attacked a legislator,
and I’m going to vote to move this out of committee,” Tarver said.
Opponents argued as they have in the past, including the
suggestion that Dean’s bill was antifamily, was a threat to public health
and could harm children.
Dean spoke briefly in favor of his bill, provoking
giggles when he said: “We all do things, I’m sure, when we are behind
closed doors.”
Courts in New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Kentucky,
Tennessee, Montana, Maryland and Georgia have all jettisoned anti-sodomy laws
over the last 20 years.
Dean’s bill passed 3-1 Tuesday.
[Home] [News] [Louisiana]
