17 States Where Gay Sex Is Outlawed

There are still 17 states in the U.S. where gay sex is illegal. Incongruous as it may be in a country where same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 states, some of those states actually keep laws on the books that would criminalize relations between members of the same sex.

In 2003 the U.S. Supreme Court found sodomy laws, which criminalize certain types of sex among consenting adults, discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional in the case Lawrence v. Texas. Nevertheless, such laws persist in several Southern and Midwestern states — and, perhaps surprisingly, onr Northeastern state. While it's all but impossible to convict a person for violating these archaic state laws, police officers still arrest people under the "authority" of statutes aimed at preventing "sodomy," because they either willfully ignore or are somehow unaware of the Supreme Court's decade-and-a-half-old ruling.

It's not difficult to imagine the myriad ways in which an arrestee's life might be affected when arrest records appear in background checks for employment, housing, scholarships, or other opportunities returning words such as "sodomy," "unnatural acts," or "unlawful intercourse." Those are the terms that recur across state lines in criminal codes in which state sodomy laws persist.

Here are the offending states that have failed to repeal their obsolete sodomy laws and some of the cringeworthy language those laws contain.

Section 13A-6-60 ¶2
Alabama law criminalizes sodomy, calling it "deviate sexual intercourse" and defining it as "any 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."

Title XLVI, Section 800.2

In Florida, "a person who commits any unnatural and lascivious act with another person commits a misdemeanor of the second degree." Replete with definitions of far less ambiguous terms, such as "victim" or "coercion," the statute fails to define "unnatural."

Section 16-6-15 

Not even requiring the act to occur, Georgia law would have two adult members of the same sex simply making plans to have sex with each other prosecuted as criminals for violating that state's statute against "solicitation of sodomy."  

Section 16-6-5 (a) says that a "person commits the offense of solicitation of sodomy when he solicits another to perform or submit to an act of sodomy."

Section 18-6605

Particularly sweeping, colorful, and frankly, just plain gross is the language contained in Idaho's backward sodomy law. Brace yourself: "Every person who is guilty of the infamous crime against nature, committed with mankind or with any animal, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison not less than five years."

Section 21-5504
Chapter 21, Article 55, Section 4, Subsection 21-5504 of the 2015 Kansas code of statutes proclaims that criminal sodomy is sodomy between persons who are 16 or more years of age and members of the same sex.

With nearly a dozen variables and situational specificities exploring all of the circumstances and configurations legislators could imagine regarding sodomy, Kansas law has nearly 20 subsections describing all the ways gay people can't legally have sex in that state. From our research, this state takes the cake for effort spent covering all the sodomite bases.

Section 510.100

In contrast to Kansas's verbose and imaginative legislative opus on sodomy, Kentucky keeps it simple and straightforward: "A person is guilty of sodomy in the fourth degree when he engages in deviate sexual intercourse with another person of the same sex."

Notably, Kentucky lawmakers felt it necessary to add disambiguating language in case any same-sex couple in love or merely sexually attracted to each other were confused, proclaiming that "consent of the other person shall not be a defense under this section, nor shall lack of consent of the other person be an element of this offense."

RS 14:8

Louisiana is a case study in how law enforcement officers can hurt people when legislators let stand laws that the Supreme Court has found unconstitutional.

Several men have been arrested in and around Baton Rouge in recent months as part of so-called sting operations during which they agreed with undercover officers to have consensual gay sex in private without any discussion of payment.

As the arrested men learned, some cops will spend substantial amounts of taxpayer money and policing time to arrange what they may or may not know are not really unlawful gay hookups only to take into custody their would-be sex partners when outdated, unconstitutional, and unenforceable sodomy laws persist.

While charges against the men arrested in East Baton Rouge Parish and the the City of Baton Rouge were ultimately dropped because the men had committed no crime, the fact remains that they were arrested and humiliated, and had been jailed.

As it happens, Louisiana is currently working on cleaning up its outdated statutes. The state wants to get rid of parking-ticket fee limits and other statutory inconveniences. However ,one Democratic legislator's failed bill from last year aimed at repealing harmful and unconstitutional antigay laws, including RS 14:89 as well as Louisiana's moot anti-equality marriage law, isn't "on the radar" this year.

“I have enough on my plate right now, so I’m not going to bring it up this year,” state Rep. Pat Smith told a Baton Rouge newspaper, coincidentally called The Advocate. “It got a lot of national attention, but it’s just not on my radar screen this year.”

Sections 3–321 and 3–322

Maryland is really specific about its sodomy law, proclaiming that "a person may not take the sexual organ of another or of an animal in the person’s mouth."

Section 34

Yes. even Massachusetts, with its reputation for liberalism, gets in on the remnant sodomy-law action with its Section 34 "Crime Against Nature" law. It reads, "Whoever commits the abominable and detestable crime against nature, either with mankind or with a beast, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than twenty years."

However, according to GLBTQ Advocates and Defenders, since 2002 Massachusetts courts have said the law does not apply to sex between consenting adults in private.

Section 750.158

Bearing introductory language almost identical to that of Massachusetts, Michigan's volume of criminal statutes' main entry about the punishment for sodomy — there are several — says, "Any person who shall commit the abominable and detestable crime against nature either with mankind or with any animal shall be guilty of a felony, punishable by imprisonment in the state prison not more than 15 years, or if such person was at the time of the said offense a sexually delinquent person, may be punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for an indeterminate term, the minimum of which shall be 1 day and the maximum of which shall be life."

Section 609.293

Using decidedly biblical parlance, Minnesota's unconstitutional-yet-persistently-on-the-books definition of sodomy says, "Sodomy means carnally knowing any person by the anus or by or with the mouth." It provides various multiyear prison sentences as punishment for sodomy.

The good news for Minnesotans is that the statute comes with a footnote that even without the Supreme Court of the United States' decision in Lawrence v. Texas, the law is superseded by a U.S. District Court's ruling that the state sodomy law is unconstitutional.

"The Hennepin County District Court found section 609.293 unconstitutional as applied to private, noncommercial acts by consenting adults in Doe v. Ventura, No. 01-489 (4th Dist. Ct. Hennepin County, May 15, 2001). In Devescovi v. Ventura, 195 F. Supp. 2d 1146 (D. Minn. 2002), the United States District Court found that, since the decision was not appealed, the Hennepin County District Court decision is binding state law."

Section 97-29-59  

Calling the act unnatural intercourse rather than sodomy, Mississippi's sodomy law says, "Every person who shall be convicted of the detestable and abominable crime against nature committed with mankind or with a beast, shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of not more than ten years."

Sections 14-177 and 14-184

Using much the same language as many of the other states' sodomy laws, North Carolina characterizes gay sex as lewd and lascivious. But interestingly, under Section 14-187 North Carolina also criminalizes the act of falsely registering as a married couple in a hotel or boarding house for "immoral purposes," reserving the misdemeanor specifically and only for couples of the opposite sex.

Chapter 21, Sections 886 and 887

Bearing the familiar English Common Law language describing sodomy as a "detestable and abominable act," Oklahoma's Section 886 forbidding gay sex (as well as oral and anal sex among straight people) is accompanied by Section 887, which adds the heading — just in case anyone was wondering — exactly how much penetration is necessary to constitute a violation of the law.

From the statute: "Any sexual penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the crime against nature."

Section 16-15-120

This one needs no introduction. But brace yourself again because it begins with a word so archaic and weird it would make you giggle if the implications of its place among South Carolina's more legitimate laws weren't such a serious matter.

Without further ado: "Buggery. Whoever shall commit the abominable crime of buggery, whether with mankind or with beast, shall, on conviction, be guilty of felony and shall be imprisoned in the Penitentiary for five years or shall pay a fine of not less than five hundred dollars, or both, at the discretion of the court."

Section 21.06

Title V, Section 21.06 of the Texas's criminal code uniquely names homosexuality as its target for criminalization: "Sec. 21.06.  HOMOSEXUAL CONDUCT.  (a)  A person commits an offense if he engages in deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex."

Thankfully, the code is updated to include the law is unconstitutional and unenforceable (maybe time to get rid of it, then?).

Section 76-5-403

Utah's unenforceable sodomy law reads, "A person commits sodomy when the actor engages in any sexual act with a person who is 14 years of age or older involving the genitals of one person and mouth or anus of another person, regardless of the sex of either participant."