Supreme court declared sodomy laws unconstitutional Historically, many states criminalized sodomy—acts of anal or oral sex—even when those acts were performed in private between two consenting adults While prosecutions for acts performed in private were generally rare, the existence of sodomy laws was used to justify discrimination based on a person's sexual orientation. Just as there are states with trigger laws in place to ban abortion once its federal protections were erased, there are still many states with laws banning sodomy, including oral sex and anal. Sodomy laws, which prohibit oral and anal sex, have been used to discriminate against and prosecute lgbtq+ people While some countries and states have repealed these laws, others continue to enforce them, with severe punishments for those convicted
For example, in georgia, aggravated sodomy carries a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life in prison and requires the defendant to register as a. These laws focused on sex, and the overwhelming majority involved heterosexual sexual acts In the law, the term sodomy refers to anal or oral sex, whether between a man and woman, two women, or two men, and was historically considered to be a criminal act As recently as the 1960s, all 50 states had laws that made even consensual sodomy illegal, viewing such acts as “crimes against nature,” or deviant sexual acts.
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