No Sodomy Prosecutions in Montana, But Law Persists
Gay City News,
January 31, 2003
487 Greenwich St., Suite 6A, New York, NY 10013
Phone: 646.452.2500
Fax: 646.452.2501
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Democratic State Representative Tom Facey is seeking to remove the Montana
anti-sodomy law from the criminal code there, telling the Billings Gazette
that he is not asking legislators to approve of "gay and lesbian
lifestyles" but to confirm the privacy rights of all. The law was ruled
unconstitutional by the Montana Supreme Court in 1997 and no one has ever been
prosecuted under it. But laws like this can be used to persecute gay people,
for example, by classifying gay or lesbian job applicants as a criminal.
Facey’s repeal effort is not without its opposition.
"I think it’s a sad thing that we have become insensitive to what
God wants for this country," Harris Himes of the Big Sky Christian Center
in Hamilton told the Gazette.
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