LGBT News Federal appeals court annuls Virginia sodomy law

A US federal appeals court ruled that Virginia’s anti-sodomy law is unconstitutional

A federal appeals court invalidated Virginia’s law prohibiting sodomy (anal and oral sex) ruling that is unconstitutional.

The three-judge panel of the 4th US circuit court of appeals ruled yesterday (12 March) that the law against oral and anal sex violates the constitution’s due process clause.

Virginia's law 18.2-361 defined such consensual acts between adults as 'crimes against nature', punishable by a term of imprisonment not less than one year nor more than five years, or a confinement in jail for not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both.

The legal challenge in this case involved a 2005 conviction of William Scott MacDonald accused of criminal solicitation of a 17 year-old minor.

The court based its decision on the landmark 2003 US supreme court striking down an anti-sodomy law in Texas, who argued that the underlying 'crimes against nature” statute on which the prosecution was based was unconstitutional.

The 2003 high court decision held that 'statutes criminalizing private acts of consensual sodomy between adults are inconsistent with the protections of liberty' in the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause

Albert Diaz, the dissenting judge, an Obama appointee, argued, however, that the law should not be invalidated as applied to MacDonald, because the Texas ruling only applied to two consenting adults.

Commenting on the news, Rebecca Glenberg, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia said: 'It is shameful that Virginia continued to prosecute individuals under the sodomy statute for 10 years after the Supreme Court held that such laws are unconstitutional.

'This ruling should bring an end to such prosecutions'.

Brian Gottstein, a spokesman for the Virginia Attorney General’s office, said: 'We are reviewing the decision and will consider our options'.

Fourteen US states still have sodomy laws on the books, including Texas – the state whose law was invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence.

While Texas notes the 2003 decision in its penal code, it takes a full act of the legislature to repeal a statute, and the legislature’s supermajority has not let the repeal come to a vote.

Four other states only criminalize sodomy involving gays.

Even though most of these laws are rarely if ever enforced, attempts to repeal them have faced strong Republican opposition.

The conservative state of Virginia also bans gay marriage and has no anti-discrimination laws for LGBT people.

 

Great News for the US

 

The following article was in the News 13th of March 2013!


A decade after Lawrence v. Texas, a federal appeals court in Virginia has finally tossed the state’s law banning anal and oral sex between consenting adults.
In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit maintained the ban against “crimes against nature,” need to go, because Lawrence established that “statutes criminalizing private acts of consensual sodomy between adults are inconsistent with the protections of liberty” in the Fourteenth Amendment’s right to due process.
Ironically, Texas still has a sodomy ban on the books. As Think Progress notes, it would take an act of the full Legislature to repeal that statute, and the Republican supermajority has blocked any attempts at repeal. In all, 14 states still ban consensual sodomy, four them specifically between two people of the same sex.