It’s been 20 years since the Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws with its decision in Lawrence v. Texas, but legal codes inherited from colonial laws and used to prosecute LGBTQ people by prohibiting some sexual acts remain in place across the country.

Efforts to strike down the laws in 12 states have taken on a new urgency after another landmark Supreme Court ruling.

Judge Clarence Thomas said in his concurring opinion last year in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—the decision that struck down the constitutional right to abortion in Roe v. Wade—that previous Supreme Court rulings affirming the right to privacy should be reconsidered.

And while the sodomy laws were struck down, there was no mandate for states to update their legal codes, leaving those laws inactive as potential restrictions if the Supreme Court reviews the ruling.

Gregory R. Nevinsan attorney with Lambda Legal, the LGBTQ advocacy group that won Lawrence v. Texas said Dobbs’ decision “increases the level of urgency” to remove sodomy laws from the books.

“And probably for some states it means they’re going to be reluctant to repeal it,” Nevins said. “As we saw, there were a lot of old abortion laws on the books that were dusted off after Dobbs.”

Maryland and Minnesota repealed their remaining sodomy laws this year, but such laws still exist in Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas.

If the Lawrence v. Texas of June 2003, statewide sodomy laws could be revived “whenever the right to privacy appears to be threatened by a conservative court,” said Wesley Phelps, author of “Before Lawrence v. Texas: The Making of a Queer Social Movement”.

The state laws were inherited from British common law, which considered sodomy a sexual act that would not lead to procreation and prohibited it, said Phelps, who is also an associate professor at the University of North Texas.

Acts prohibited on such grounds could include same-sex sexual relations, oral and anal sex between a man and a woman, and masturbation. Legal language is not always explicit and varies from state to state. In North Carolina, for example, the sodomy law makes it a felony to commit a “crime against nature, humanity, or beasts.”

Over time, the language defining a “crime against nature” changed in some states, often more clearly targeting same-sex couples. Other states decided that the legal system was moving toward preserving the right to privacy and repealed sodomy laws to reflect that, such as Illinois did it in 1961.

However, in states where sodomy laws have been upheld, they have been used as tools of oppression and discrimination against gay and lesbian people, Phelps said.

In Texas, he said, people who wanted to apply for certain jobs or professional licenses, such as those needed for medicine or cosmetology, would have to sign a document agreeing to follow state laws. This meant that, prior to Lawrence v. Texas, gay and lesbian individuals had to commit perjury or fail to apply.

“It wasn’t really a gay and lesbian crime issue; it was a discrimination issue,” Mr. Phelps said.

Today, while the laws are unenforceable, they can still be used to discriminate or mistakenly arrest people, leading some state legislators to try to repeal them.

In March, the Maryland legislature struck down a provision that made it illegal to perform oral sex or engage in sexual acts deemed “unnatural or perverted” with a human or animal. Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, failed to veto the repeal bill, allowing it to take effect without his signature in May. The clause will be removed from the state penal code on October 1.

Maryland had repealed a more explicit sodomy ban in 2020, but “unnatural or perverted” language was used that remained in May 2021 arrest four gay men during a raid on an adult book and video store.

Also in May, Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, a Democrat, signed a public safety bill that repeals the state’s ban on sodomy, as well as bans on adultery and fornication. The Minnesota Supreme Court had ruled that the ban on sodomy was unconstitutional in 2001.

Texas lawmakers have tried to strike down the sodomy law that the Supreme Court struck down in Lawrence v. Texas every year since the case was decided in 2003. This yearthe legislative session ended before the House had time to consider the repeal legislation.

in massachusetts, an invoice passing through the state Legislature would erase several instances of outdated language, including sodomy laws that criminalize “unnatural and lewd” acts. The so-called archaic laws bill would also remove words like “common night walkers” and “common street walkers” from state law and replace them with “people.”

State Rep. Jay Livingstone, a Democrat, is the co-sponsor of the archaic laws bill in the House and said these efforts had become more important after recent Supreme Court decisions.

“Massachusetts has made a number of pro-LGBTQ statements, but we still have the laws on our books to prohibit what people would generally consider legal activity between consenting adults that have been used in the past to target the LGBTQ community,” Mr. Livingstone said. “We should repeal those bans to reflect the values ​​we want in our society.”