Town Hall Meeting in Mississippi Saturday on Lambda Legal’s U.S. Supreme
Court Case Challenging Texas’s Sodomy Law
Decision in Case Expected in June: Outcome Could
Effect Mississippi’s “Unnatural Intercourse” Law
Equality
Mississippi, April 28, 2003
Contact: Jody Renaldo; Executive Director
601-936-7673
jody@equalityms.org
Jackson, MS—Lambda Legal Defense
and Education Fund and Equality Mississippi will co-host a community town hall
meeting Saturday afternoon with an update on Lambda Legal’s case challenging
Texas’s “Homosexual Conduct” law. The U.S. Supreme Court will issue a
decision in the case by June.
“Since the day the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it
would hear our case, there’s been a tremendous amount of interest and energy
from LGBT people and straight allies around the state who want to seize this
historic moment with us,” said Hector Vargas, Director of Lambda Legal’s
Southern Regional Office in Atlanta. “Many of us have been working for years
to get rid of laws like this. We’re excited to be working with our friends
in Jackson to increase understanding of this case, the many ways sodomy laws
hurt gay people, and the need to get rid of these laws once and for all.”
Mississippi’s sodomy law includes both heterosexual and
homosexual couples but as is often the case, is mostly used against gay men
and lesbians. Depending on how the Supreme Court’s decision is written
regarding the Texas law, the Mississippi law may be affected.
“Mississippi’s antiquated sodomy law came on the
books when, in a code adopted in 1802, Mississippi recognized common- law
crimes, thus making sodomy a capital offense,” said Jody Renaldo, Equality
Mississippi executive director. “201 years later, whether you are gay or
straight, you are classified as a felon if you engage in consensual oral and
or anal sex. How many of our current legislators go home to their wives,
husbands, girlfriends and boyfriends and render themselves felons by breaking
the state’s sodomy law? There are better things to do with law enforcement
time and state money than policing the bedroom sex acts of consenting
adults.”
Mississippi’s sex offender laws also require anyone
convicted of sodomy to register as a sex offender with their local sheriff’s
department and such information is open to the public.
In the Supreme Court case against the Texas law, Lambda
Legal represents John Lawrence and Tyron Garner, who were arrested in
Lawrence’s Houston home and jailed overnight after officers responding to a
false report found the men engaged in private, consensual sex. Once convicted,
they were forced to pay fines, are now considered sex offenders in several
states and are disqualified from working in dozens of professions. Texas’s
“Homosexual Conduct” law criminalizes oral and anal sex by consenting gay
couples and is used widely to justify discrimination against lesbians and gay
men. On March 26, the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the Texas law
violates the federal Constitution’s guarantee that laws must protect and
apply to people equally, as well as whether it violates the right to privacy.
Co-sponsoring the event is American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) of Mississippi.
Saturday afternoon’s forum is part of a series of
presentations Lambda Legal is hosting in all 13 states that still have sodomy
laws. In partnership with a wide range of organizations, the community
meetings will help educate the public about the harms sodomy laws cause and
empower people to help fight these laws.
The community town hall meeting will be Saturday
afternoon, May 3, 2003, from 2:00-4:00 p.m. at the Eudora Welty Library, 300
N. State Street, Jackson, Mississippi.
Notes to Reporters and Editors:
Mississippi sodomy law history may be obtained on the
World Wide Web at: http://www.sodomylaws.org/sensibilities/mississippi.htm
Lambda Legal’s US Supreme Court sodomy law case section
may be found on the World Wide Web at: http://www.lambdalegal.org/cgi-bin/iowa/documents/record?record=1190
Reference Mississippi’s sodomy law: Mississippi Code
Annotated (1972) §97-29-59
[Home] [News] [Mississippi]
