Last edited: January 06, 2005


New York Deletes ‘Sodomy’ from Its Laws

Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network, June 20, 2003

SUMMARY: To the delight of gay rights advocates, the state of New York moved on Friday to remove the terms “sodomy” and “deviate sexual intercourse” from its laws.

To the delight of gay rights advocates, the state of New York moved on Friday to remove the terms “sodomy” and “deviate sexual intercourse” from its laws.

New York Gov. George Pataki and the two leaders of the state Senate and Assembly made a three-way agreement on Thursday to alter the terminology, according to a press release from the Empire State Pride Agenda (ESPA), New York’s largest GLBT rights group.

“This agreement will mean the last vestiges of New York’s sorry history of stigmatizing homosexuality will be wiped off the books,” said Alan Van Capelle, ESPA’s executive director. “We are elated that the Assembly, Senate and governor came together and fulfilled a promise they made in 2000 to remove the insulting, anachronistic and stigmatizing terms from state law.”

The Senate passed the bill removing the language on Friday morning, and the Assembly was expected to follow suit later on Friday or Monday.

Sex assault crimes in New York were categorized for decades as rape and sodomy. The definition of rape was a crime of “sexual intercourse,” while the crime of sodomy was defined as “deviate sexual intercourse.”

Advocates for victims of sexual assault also welcomed Friday’s announcement.

“It has been excruciating for a woman who has been raped to be told, read in the papers, have to sign complaints and testify on the stand that she was ‘sodomized’ or subjected to ‘deviate sexual intercourse,’” said Susan Xenarios, director of the St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Crime Victims Treatment Center.

ESPA said that because of a misinterpretation of the Sodom and Gomorrah story in the Bible, many people associated “sodomy” with gay sex, when in fact the overwhelming majority of sodomy crime charges in New York involve oral sexual assaults by men against women.

State sodomy laws that target gay sexual activity are under scrutiny by the U.S. Supreme Court, and the justices are scheduled to rule next week on a challenge to Texas’ sodomy law.


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