Louisiana Using 214-Year-Old ‘Sodomy’ Law to Target Sex Workers (AVN)

Read the full article by Michael French at AVN.com

So-called ‘Crimes Against Nature’ laws were ruled unconstitutional in 2005, but still on books.

In a landmark 2003 case, Lawrence v. Texas, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the usually centuries-old “anti-sodomy” laws then still on the books in many states were unconstitutional. The statutes, also sometimes referred to as “Crimes Against Nature” laws, violated the Constitution’s Due Process Clause by intruding on the liberty  of private individuals to engage in private conduct, with the state unable to show any “compelling” interest in stopping them. 

But in Louisiana, according to a group of activists who demonstrated at the New Orleans annual “Southern Decadence Festival” last week, still not only has its “CANS" laws on the books, but police are using those unconstitutional laws to target sex workers—specifically trans women of color, according to a report appearing in Out Magazine on Thursday.

As recently as last year, Louisiana passed a new CANS bill banning bestiality—sexual abuse of animals—but at least 10 Republicans opposed the law because it decoupled bestiality from sodomy, an act involving human-on-human sexual contact. The two acts were previously bundled together in one law banning both. But Republicans determined to keep the anti-LGBTQ sodomy laws on the books feared that the new law would be a “Trojan horse” that would lead to abolition of the anti-sodomy law.

But that, trans sex worker turned social activist Wendi Cooper told Out, is exactly what needs to happen.