Gay Sex And Oral Sex With Non-Marrieds Was Illegal In Alabama Until Last Friday

It was just last Friday that an Alabama court struck down the state’s ban on gay sex.

[The law says] a person is guilty of “sexual misconduct” if they engage in “[a]ny act of sexual gratification between persons not married to each other involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another” — meaning that oral and anal sex of any kind is a crime under Alabama state law unless it is enjoyed with one’s spouse. Because Alabama is also a marriage discrimination state, this law has obvious implications for gay people in that state. Indeed, the official commentary to the law explains that it was enacted to “make all homosexual conduct criminal.”

“Consent,” under this Alabama sex ban, “is no defense to a prosecution.”

On Friday, however, an Alabama appeals court handed down the state’s first decision declaring this law unconstitutional. This isn’t a particularly surprising decision. The Supreme Court held in its landmark 2003 opinion in Lawrence v. Texas that the Constitution forbids laws prohibiting consensual, private sexual activity between adults. If an Alabama court allowed the state’s sex ban to stand, it would have done so in direct defiance of the Constitution and the Supreme Court of the United States.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.