Letter: Leftover laws hurt
The Washington Post,
April 19, 1998
1150 15th Street NW, Washington, DC 20071
Online Mailer: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm
IN EXAMINING THE CRIMINALIZATION of consensual sex acts, Liza Mundy
writes that "sex laws -- laws against adultery, sodomy, fornication -- are leftovers
of a time when a zone of sexual privacy was wholly unrecognized."
That may be so for heterosexual couples. But today, these "leftover" laws are
being reheated and served up to gays and lesbians, with devastating effects on their
personal and professional lives.
The author concludes that it is time to "either take the law seriously or have the
legislative courage and moral honesty to abolish the law." But that is a false
choice; the only fair option for all Americans is to totally repeal the laws. The state
has no business policing the private, intimate relations of its citizens, gay or straight.
-- Matt Coles, ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project
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