Gregory R. Nevins, a lawyer at Lambda Authorized, the L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy group that received the Lawrence v. Texas case, mentioned the Dobbs determination “raises the urgency degree” for getting the sodomy legal guidelines off the books.
“And doubtless for some states implies that they’ll be reluctant to repeal it,” Mr. Nevins mentioned. “As we noticed, there have been numerous previous abortion legal guidelines on the books that received dusted off after Dobbs.”
Maryland and Minnesota repealed their remaining sodomy legal guidelines this yr, however such legal guidelines nonetheless exist in Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas.
If the Lawrence v. Texas determination from June 2003 had been overturned, the state-level sodomy legal guidelines may very well be revived “so long as it seems the appropriate to privateness is underneath menace from a conservative court docket,” mentioned Wesley Phelps, the creator of “Earlier than Lawrence v. Texas: The Making of a Queer Social Motion.”
The state legal guidelines had been inherited from British widespread legislation, which thought of sodomy a sexual act that might not result in procreation and banned it, Mr. Phelps, who can also be an affiliate professor on the College of North Texas, mentioned.