Virginia finally repeals sodomy ban outlawed over a decade ago by Supreme Court

By a vote of 100-0, the Virginia House of Delegates has agreed with the state Senate and passed legislation that eliminates an unconstitutional sodomy ban than made oral and anal sex illegal.


From Think Progress:

After years of unsuccessful attempts to repeal the law, in 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Lawrence v. Texas ruling held that states may not ban private non-commercial sex between consenting adults. Virginia’s Crimes Against Nature statute, which made oral sex (even between consenting married couples) a felony, was clearly the sort of legislation the Court was referencing. But a year later the Republican-controlled state legislature killed a bill to update the law and remove the statute’s consensual sodomy provisions. Virginia’s leading anti-LGBT forces opposed the update.

Last year, the federal courts overturned the conviction of a man charged, under Virginia’s Crimes Against Nature law, of soliciting a 17-year-old female for oral sex — a felony under the statute. Because that law — first enacted in 1950 to prohibit oral and anal sex, as well as bestiality — had not been updated, the court ruled it was unenforceable, putting the convictions of other sexual offenders and child predators at risk.

The bill now heads to Gov. Terry McAuliffe's desk for his signature.

A decade after the SCOTUS ruling at least a dozen US states still have  anti-sodomy laws on the books.