4 Apr 2013 9:50 am
Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli Challenges Va. Sodomy Ruling Although most people think sodomy laws have been unconstitutional since the Supreme Court's 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli would like to explain why in his view that's not so. What's more, he wants the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to agree with him and uphold the constitutionality of Virginia's sodomy law which makes anal and oral sex between people of any sex a crime in the process. Cuccinelli last week asked the full appellate court to reverse a three-judge panel's decision and uphold the application of the law in a criminal prosecution against William Scott MacDonald, a very unsympathetic defendant. MacDonald, 47 at the time, was convicted of violating the state's criminal solicitation statute, which applies whenever a person over 18 "commands ... or otherwise attempts to persuade" a person under 18 to commit a felony. According to the appeals court decision, MacDonald called up a 17-year-old girl, met her in a Home Deopt parking lot, went to her grandmother's house, and then asked the girl to perform oral sex on him and have sex with him. She "declined both proposals," but MacDonald later told the police that she "performed oral sex against his will." The girl "gave a sharply conflicting account," according to the court, and he was charged with filing a false police report, among other more serious crimes. Specifically, MacDonald eventually was convicted of soliciting a minor to commit the felony of violating Virginia's "Crimes Against Nature" statute, or sodomy law. Under the sodomy law If any person . . . carnally knows any male or female person by the anus or by or with the mouth, or vol- untarily submits to such carnal knowledge, he or she shall be guilty of a [felony.] Read more at link in title. Cuccinelli wants the court to revive the prohibition on consensual anal and oral sex, for both gay and straight people.