The Michigan Senate has passed a bill that effectively reaffirms the state's unconstitutional law making sodomy a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Michigan is one of more than a dozen states that still have sodomy bans on the books, despite the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas declaring them unconstitutional.
Some states' sodomy laws specifically target gay relations, but Michigan's is among those that make oral and anal sex crimes illegal regardless of whether they're same-sex or different-sex. Michigan is also one of several states with a sodomy ban that's intertwined with a prohibition on bestiality – effectively equating the two. The law makes it a felony for anyone to commit "the abominable and detestable crime against nature with mankind or with any animal." If the person is already a sex offender, violations are punishable by life in prison.
12 states still ban sodomy.
All Sodomy Outlawed: Idaho, Utah, Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana
Sodomy outlawed just for gays: Montana, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04 … g/7981025/
Could You Get Jail Time for a Blow Job or Anal Sex? In some states it is a real question.
The republicans are much more interested in your gay sex life than they are interested in the problems of this country.
As recently as 2013, in Loiuisana:
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2013/07/28/2366811/ … w-arrests/
"According to a special report from the Baton Rouge Advocate, the Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office is conducting stings to find men willing to have consensual gay sex and arresting them for crimes against nature. No money is discussed in these exchanges; the men are being targeted and humiliated under the state’s sodomy law, which has been unconstitutional since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 Lawrence v. Texas ruling.
"At least a dozen of these arrests have taken place since 2011, with the most recent taking place July 18. District Attorney Hillar Moore III said that none of these cases have been prosecuted because no crime occurred, but these men are still being arrested, temporarily jailed, and fined merely for agreeing to private sexual activity. According to a statement from Casey Rayborn Hicks, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Office, the department clearly doesn’t understand that the sodomy law is unenforceable. In fact, she defended the arrests simply because the invitations for sex took place in a public park — even though the sex itself was still going to take place in a private residence."
In 2008:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/05/25/522336/- … TUS-ruling
"Despite a ruling by the US Supreme Court that struck down sodomy laws, police in Raleigh NC have charged two men with "crimes against nature". After the Supreme Court ruling, state lawmakers had decided it was easier to leave the law on the books rather than risk the ire of religious zealots. Despite the fact that the law is considered unconstitutional, the two men face up to two years in prison on the felony charges."
Lawrence v. Texas certainly wiped out the gay-only sodomy laws. I seriously doubt that even those also applying to straight people would survive federal court scrutiny.