Various civil rights organizations in Alabama are joyously cheering for a court ruling that declared that a part of the state sexual misconduct law is unconstitutional. As indicated in the statute, consensual oral and anal sex was banned in what the court determined was an act aimed at criminalizing activities of homosexuals.
A portion of the law cited in the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ruling indicated that "Consent is no defense to a prosecution under this subdivision."
In the case of Dewayne Williams vs. State of Alabama, this ruling was unanimous. Williams, a man living in Dallas County, was not convicted in 2010 for charges of first-degree sodomy, but was rather convicted of what was referred to as a "lesser-included offense" of sexual misconduct. Williams acknowledged that he personally took part in the sodomy, but he strongly argued that it was completely consensual.
According to a survey conducted by the Human Rights Campaign, which is a national group that advocates for LGBT or lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, rights, indicated that Alabama is one of the dozen states that still have laws that prohibit consensual homosexual activities to this day.
The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, Susan Watson, applauded this ruling. She said, "Aiming to ban consensual sex is flat-out wrong. A person's sexual orientation shouldn't matter. Consensual sex is consensual sex." Ben Cooper, the chairman for Equality Alabama, was also another personality who showed his support for the ruling. He stated that the law was "settled years ago" under the Lawrence vs. Texas.
The Lawrence vs. Texas was a case that the Alabama court referenced for making its decision. In the 2003 case, it was identified that the act of two persons of the same sex to engage in specific intimate sexual conducts was determined as a violation of the due process clause under the 14th amendment.
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