Louisiana May Be Latest in ‘Overwhelming Trend’ of State Courts Finding Sodomy
Laws Unconstitutional
ACLU Lesbian And Gay Rights Project
For Immediate Release: Monday, April 10, 2000
Contact: Eric Ferrero, American Civil Liberties Union
(212) 549-2568; (917) 791-7454
NEW ORLEANS, LA—As state courts nationwide continue striking down
laws that criminalize private, non-commercial, sexual intimacy between consenting adults,
the Louisiana Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday on whether the state’s
"crime against nature" law violates the right to privacy guaranteed in the
Louisiana Constitution.
Last year, a state appellate court struck down Louisiana’s 195-year-old sodomy
law, which makes oral and anal sex between consenting adults felonies punishable by up to
five years in prison. The ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court of
Louisiana.
"In our society, few matters are considered more private than sexual relations
between consenting adults," the ACLU brief says. "When considering a public
morality justification for [the sodomy statute], it is important for the Court to recall
that prohibitions on interracial marriage, and the segregation of races generally, were
values deeply imbedded in the social morality of many areas of the United States and were
values that invoked both God and nature. But appeals to natural or theological ethics
cannot constitutionally be used to legitimate laws whose sole function is to give effect
to private citizens’ prejudice or conviction."
The Louisiana Constitution explicitly guarantees citizens’ right to privacy. In
February 1999, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal in Louisiana
unanimously found that the state’s sodomy law is a "state action that imposes a
burden on this constitutionally protected right."
The appellate court was ruling in the case of a man who was charged with raping a
woman, including a charge of "crime against nature," or sodomy. He was acquitted
of rape, but since both he and his accuser testified that oral sex took place, he was
convicted of the sodomy charge. In reversing his conviction and sentence, the appellate
court also made its ruling on the unconstitutionality of the sodomy statute. The state
appealed the decision to the Louisiana Supreme Court.
In urging the state’s highest court to uphold the appellate court’s ruling,
the ACLU noted that, "during the past decade, state court after state court has
struck down sodomy statutes like [Louisiana’s], holding that private, non-commercial
sexual activity between consenting adults is entitled to constitutional protection and no
governmental interest justifies denying this protection."
In recent years, the ACLU’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project has successfully worked
to overturn sodomy laws in Maryland (1999), Georgia (1998), Montana (1997), Tennessee
(1996) and Kentucky (1993). The ACLU’s challenge to Puerto Rico’s sodomy statute
continues. In 1961, every state in America had a sodomy law. Today, 13 states and Puerto
Rico have sodomy laws that apply to heterosexuals and homosexuals (like Louisiana’s
sodomy statute). Another five states have sodomy laws that apply only to homosexuals.
In its brief in Louisiana, the ACLU said a decision by the state Supreme Court to
strike down the sodomy statute as a violation of the state constitution’s privacy
guarantee "rather than plowing new ground, will be consistent with the overwhelming
trend in this country’s courts and legislatures."
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Eric Ferrero, Public Education Director
ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project
125 Broad St., 18th Floor
New York, NY 10004-2400
Tel: 212-549-2568; Fax: 212-549-2650
Email: eferrero@aclu.org
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