Last edited: February 14, 2005

 

Letter: State Sodomy Law

Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 12, 2001
425 Portland Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55408
Fax: 612-673-4359
Email: opinion@startribune.com

We have turned democratic institutions upside down and inside out. The people through the Legislature created a crime of sodomy that has existed in one form or another since Minnesota’s inception as a state. The recent decision of Hennepin County Judge Delila Pierce strikes this law down as unconstitutional. All it took to do away with the law was for a pitifully small group to sue; an activist judge to divine the unwritten constitution; and Mike Hatch, who says the attorney general has no duty to defend the laws of Minnesota when they are attacked in our courts.

Now, while nonmarried homosexual couples can legally engage in sodomy, nonmarried heterosexual couples who engage in "normal" vaginal intercourse can still be charged with a crime of fornication. Somehow this result seems absurdly appropriate.

— Greg Wersal, attorney, Golden Valley


[Home] [Editorials] [Minnesota]

 

1