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| Sodomy Laws and Sodomy Law Reform
In light of Lawrence, sodomy laws may not be used constitutionally in the United States to penalize private, consensual sex between adults. However, they may still be used to punish oral or anal intercourse as part of inter-generational sex (sex between adults and minors), non-consensual sex, commercial sex (prostitution), and public sexual conduct, until the courts determine the extent to which the rationale of Lawrence may extend to these areas. In the immediate aftermath of Lawrence, the Supreme Court ordered the Kansas courts to reconsider a lower court decision in Limon v. Kansas, in which an 18-year-old man was sentenced to 17 years in prison for initiating oral sex with a boy who was just under 15 years old while both were residents of a group home for vocationally-impaired teenagers. (Had the underage partner been a girl, the maximum penalty would have been barely more than a year.) The Supreme Court indicated that this case should be reconsidered "in light of Lawrence v. Texas," implying that any use of sex crimes laws that treats gay sex differently from non-gay sex may be constitutionally questionable. The Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence, the culmination of half a century of efforts to achieve decriminalization of consensual sodomy between adults, establishes a new groundwork for evaluating all legal claims relating to lesbian and gay rights, making this decision the most important one ever rendered by the Supreme Court concerning the citizenship rights of gay people.
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literature >> Overview: The Bible social sciences >> Overview: Gay Rights Movement, U. S. social sciences >> Overview: Military Law: United States social sciences >> Overview: Sodom social sciences >> Overview: Sodomy social sciences >> ACLU LGBT & AIDS Project social sciences >> Bowers v. Hardwick / Lawrence v. Texas social sciences >> Empire State Pride Agenda social sciences >> Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) social sciences >> Hooker, Evelyn social sciences >> Kinsey, Alfred C. social sciences >> Norris, David social sciences >> Romer v. Evans social sciences >> Stonewall Riots social sciences >> Vock, Anna social sciences >> Wolfenden Report
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| Bibliography | ||
Cain, Patricia A. Rainbow Rights: The Role of Lawyers and Courts in the Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights Movement. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2000. Eskridge, William N., Jr. Gaylaw: Challenging the Apartheid of the Closet. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999. Leonard, Arthur S. Sexuality and the Law: An Encyclopedia of Major Legal Cases. New York: Garland Publishing, 1993.
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| Citation Information | ||||
| Author: | Leonard, Arthur S. | |||
| Entry Title: | Sodomy Laws and Sodomy Law Reform | |||
| General Editor: | Claude J. Summers | |||
| Publication Name: | glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian,
Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture |
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| Publication Date: | 2004 | |||
| Date Last Updated | December 15, 2006 | |||
| Web Address | www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/sodomy_laws.html | |||
| Publisher | glbtq, Inc. 1130 West Adams Chicago, IL 60607 |
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| Encyclopedia Copyright: | © 2002-2006, glbtq, Inc. | |||
| Entry Copyright | © 2004, glbtq, inc. | |||
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