For those who missed it, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback decided last month to keep the state’s unconstitutional — and thus unenforceable — law criminalizing gay sex on the books. Of the 51 burdensome and outdated laws he is asking state legislators to repeal, Kansas’ sodomy law is not included. The decision is hardly surprising from a man with a history of anti-LGBT policies. But it does not change the fact that this law needs to be repealed.
The sodomy laws that remain in a few conservative states are repugnant for their symbolism. Their mere presence shouts publicly and officially that gay people are immoral. Not garden-variety, cut-in-line immoral, but criminal immoral. As more states recognize same-sex marriage, gay couples face the peculiar situation of being legally equal in some states and, but for the Supreme Court, worthy of jail in others.
And these laws do more than offend; they cause real harm, too. In 2008 in Kansas, Finney County Attorney John Wheeler Jr. cited the state’s sodomy law in a presentation to Garden City Community College students to warn them that same-sex relationships were “UNLAWFUL” (his capitalization, not mine). In 2011, the Internal Revenue Service used Kansas’ law to wrongly deny head of household filing status to a gay Kansan who supported his partner economically.
Other states with these laws have seen worse. In 2009, an El Paso, Texas, restaurant kicked out a group of men when two of them kissed. Both the restaurant and the men called the police. El Paso has an ordinance prohibiting places of public accommodation from discriminating based on sexual orientation. But rather than warn the restaurant that it was breaking the law, police used Texas’ sodomy law to tell the men that same-sex kissing in public was illegal and to threaten arrest.
The worst case I know of happened in North Carolina in 2008. In what appears to be consensual sex that turned into rape, the apparent victim called police. Rather than arrest the offender for sexual assault, police arrested both men under North Carolina’s sodomy law. The police stood by the arrests even when presented with the law’s unconstitutionality. Each man had to post several thousand dollars in bail, and it took the county attorney five days to drop the charges.
Kansas Equality Coalition, the civil rights group for LGBT and supportive Kansans, is working hard to repeal the states sodomy law. But Brownback and state legislators from both parties have opposed us at every step. Do your part today by contacting your elected officials. And please consider joining us in our mission to eliminate discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in Kansas.
Joseph M. Jarvis is the chair of the Kansas Equality Coalition of Metropolitan Kansas City (http://kansasequalitycoalition.org).
