A Declaration For Sodomy

Ted Rall -- In a decision that nearly makes up for Bush v. Gore, the nation's highest court has stricken a Texas statute that banned back-door love between gay men and women. (In a little-used loophole, the practice would have been legal between gay men and gay women.) "[Gays'] right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Laws banning sodomy between gays in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri were also overturned by the decision. But the greatest beneficiaries of the Supremes' judgement are the millions of heterosexual couples who risked violating sodomy laws in Idaho, Utah, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. Until June 27, anyone caught engaging in sodomy--having oral or anal sex--in those states faced arrest, regardless of their sexual orientation.

What a tragic waste of sexual potential those laws represent! According to a 1995 Playboy survey, 66 percent of Americans felt that they weren't getting enough oral sex. How much workplace inefficiency was created by employee frustration? How many soldiers, distracted by a state of horniness, fell in battle? At the time of the decision 82,996,177 people lived in the oppressive anti-sodomy belt; millions more traveled to and through those missionary-position-only regions of the country. These newly-liberated people--in the United States of America, for God's sake!--no longer face arrest when they make love to their spouses, boyfriends or girlfriends in a manner previously proscribed by their state legislatures. And yes, it really did happen--more than 2,000 people were charged with sodomy law violations between 1988 and 1995 in Louisiana, where each faced a $2,000 fine plus a five-year prison term. Is it any wonder that two-thirds of the public was terrified of putting their naughty bits in legal jeopardy?