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
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