Judge Says Minnesota’s Sodomy Repeal Applies to All Adults
The Advocate,
July 3, 2001
A Minnesota state judge ruled Monday that every adult in the state is
covered under a recent decision that struck down as unconstitutional the
state’s prohibition on oral and anal sex. The American Civil Liberties
Union, which brought the lawsuit challenging the sodomy statute, had asked
state district court judge Delila F. Pierce to technically certify her earlier
ruling as a class action, so that there would be no uncertainty about its
impact. The state opposed this at a hearing last month. "There can be no
question now: Minnesota’s sodomy law has been struck down and cannot be
invoked anywhere in the state," said ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project
staff attorney Leslie Cooper, who worked on the case with lawyers from the
ACLU’s Minnesota state affiliate. Pierce’s initial ruling, handed down in
May, struck down the sodomy law as it applied to private, consensual,
noncommercial intimacy. The ACLU had filed a lawsuit on behalf of several
straight and gay Minnesotans who said the sodomy statute violated the privacy
rights they are guaranteed by the state constitution. "This law invited
the state into every bedroom in Minnesota, criminalizing some of the most
common forms of intimacy between adults," said Minnesota ACLU executive
director Charles Samuelson. "It is difficult to imagine a more blatant
invasion of privacy." Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, a defendant in
the case along with the attorney general and the state itself, agreed on the
day the ruling was released. "The judge’s action is consistent with the
governor’s principle that there are certain things the government should not
have a role in," Ventura spokesman John Wodele told the Saint Paul
Pioneer Press. But just days later, the state filed legal papers seeking to
limit the ruling’s impact.
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