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This item is also available on the web at:
http://www.aclu.org/LesbianGayRights/LesbianGayRights.cfm?ID=5030&c=41
Examples of Sodomy Laws Used to Discriminate Against Lesbian and Gay
People
August 22, 2001
Sodomy Laws: Clear and Present Danger Examples of Sodomy Laws Used to
Discriminate Against Lesbians and Gay Men
To many people, sodomy laws - state statutes that criminalize private,
consensual, non-commercial intimacy - seem like antiquated legal codes that
still exist technically, but are not actually enforced. In fact, these laws are
frequently used to discriminate against lesbians and gay men. Following is just
a small selection of recent examples. In Alabama, the sodomy law was used to
deny funding to a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender student group at a
state-funded university. Anti-gay groups said the student organization would be
using state funds to promote violation of state law. The ACLU, representing the
student group, won that case.
When the ACLU filed a state lawsuit challenging the sodomy statute in
Minnesota, plaintiffs in the case included layers and teachers whose livelihood
was jeopardized by the sodomy law. Like many professions, the licensing
requirements for people in these fields include forbidding professionals from
engaging in illegal activity. As long as the sodomy law exists, the successful
lawsuit argued, people's jobs were vulnerable.
In Mississippi, courts refused to transfer custody of a teenage boy to his
father, despite the fact that they boy's mother's new husband had repeatedly
beaten the mother in the boy's presence. A lower court and the state Supreme
Court acknowledged that the boy's father could provide a better home for his
son, but denied him custody because he is gay, and Mississippi has a sodomy law.
The ACLU represented the father, and by moving the case out of Mississippi's
courts, successfully secured a custody transfer.
In Virginia, a number of parenting cases have hinged on the state sodomy
law (including the well-known Sharon Bottoms case, where Bottoms' mother took
custody of Bottoms' child because Bottoms is a lesbian, and thus a criminal
under the state's sodomy law). More recently, the ACLU has been working with a
lesbian couple who want to adopt a baby in Washington, DC, and raise it at their
nearby home in Northern Virginia. The state of Virginia has to approve this,
which it is refusing to do in part because the women are violating the state
sodomy law.
In Texas, the ACLU fought a social work supervisor who invoked her
"emergency powers" to stop placing foster children with gay, lesbian, bisexual
and transgender people. She was able to use those "emergency powers" because a
law (the state sodomy law) was being broken in the homes in question. That
social worker is sued the state to stop foster placements in gay, lesbian,
bisexual and transgender homes statewide. The ACLU, intervening on behalf of
lesbian and gay Texans, prevailed. A separate legal challenge to the state's
sodomy law continues.
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