Last edited: February 27, 2005

 

Indiana

  • Statute: Repealed 1977

History

            1807     An extremely harsh sodomy law, including flogging, is signed by Governor William Henry Harrison, the only sodomy law ever signed by a future U.S. President.

            1827     Indiana becomes the first state in the nation to make an accusation of sodomy a specific ground for libel.

            1881     A new criminal code adds a provision to the sodomy law that it is illegal for a person over twenty-one to assist someone under twenty-one with masturbation. Cunnilingus is prosecuted in the state under this provision.

            1907     Indiana enacts the nation’s (and world’s) first sterilization law. The first law covers all “confirmed criminals,” which could include those convicted of sodomy.

            1953     The first published sodomy case under the federal Assimilative Crimes Act is in Indiana. The law makes a crime on federal property located within a state anything that is a crime under state law.

            1964     Indiana Supreme Court Justice Amos Jackson issues the first of what would turn out to be many dissents in sodomy cases, he being the most outspokenly anti-sodomy law Supreme Court Justice in the nation until his retirement in 1970.


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