They won't become fully legal quite yet, but a bill passed by the state House of Delegates would reduce oral and anal sex - or "crimes against nature" - a misdemeanor instead of a felony, reducing the penalties, assuming anyone is turned in for committing the "crimes".
The bill passed without debate but with a very tight margin, 50-49; it now goes to the state Senate. The states "crimes against nature" law usually applies to acts between consenting adults no matter their gender, Yahoo! News reports, and no matter whether they are public or private acts. But activists say it's applied more frequently against gay men seeking each other in public.
Sponsor Delegate Karen Darner, an Arlington Democrat, has tried several attempts to get the law reformed or repealed. This year, however, she's trying by way of cutting it back from a felony to a misdemeanor charge, with a maximum $250 fine for a penalty, Yahoo! News says.
"Most people do not know it is a felonious crime, with a one- to five-year possible jail sentence and a $2,500 fine," she says. "Because it's a felony, those convicted "could lose their professional licenses and lose their right to vote. You might say it's rarely enforced, but I say it's selectively enforced. Let's wake up to the reality. A private act of love that occurs every day in homes across the Commonwealth" should not be a felony."
Darner was particularly moved by the testimony in a committee hearing of a woman with disabilities that her entire sex life has been felonious, Yahoo! News continues. The Arlington Democrat says prosecutors assured her the charge wouldn't be brought as often if the penalty were less harsh.
The bill has considerable bipartisan support, Yahoo! News says. One Republican, David Albo of Fairfax, says it wasn't so much he and his fellow Republicans wanted to make oral sex or sodomy legal as it was they wanted to fix an apparent anomaly: sodomy by a married couple is considered a felony, while heterosexual intercourse with a prostitute is a mere misdemeanor.
And those parts of the current law against forcible sodomy, incest, and bestiality will stay felonies, Yahoo! News says.
The House of Delegates also passed a requirement for filtering software on school Internet computers.
