5
The United States Didn't Decriminalize Homosexuality Until 2003
chrisbradshaw/iStock/Getty Images
In the United States, we like to heap criticism on nations like Russia and Uganda for passing laws that stomp on the rights and dignity of homosexuals. Hell, here in the U.S., an increasing number of states have even legalized same-sex marriage, and we've now repealed the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell, don't gay" policy. Why, we can't even remember the bad old days when homosexual relations were still criminal acts in the U.S., when consenting adults were being arrested for the stuff they did to each other's genitals in the privacy of their own homes.
After all, that was way back in 2003.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images News/Getty Images
Ye olde 'Merica.
States have had anti-sodomy laws on the books for centuries, but around the 1970s, they started getting repealed one by one all across the country. Not in Texas, though, which together with 13 other states wanted to keep these antiquated provisions as a secret weapon to harass homosexuals. In the end, this wholly unnecessary obsession with double-wiener love came to a head in 2003 during the case of Lawrence v. Texas.
In 1998, police officers responding to reports of a discharged weapon entered the apartment of Houston resident John Geddes Lawrence, only to discover that the only weapons in sight were two male penises in close proximity to one another. Caught in the act of loving another man, which the good lord explicitly forbids, Lawrence and his lover, Tyron Garner, were arrested and fined for violating Texas' Homosexual Conduct law. And Texas would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling Supreme Court judges.
US Supreme Court via University of Michigan
"Let's split up, gang!"
1611 Comments