Jack Knapp of the Virginia Assembly of Independent Baptists pretty much nailed it down before Virginia's state Senate Courts and Justice Committee: "You know and I know that there are no police in the bedroom. (But) this is a time for strengthening the moral fiber of the Commonwealth. Reducing the penalty won't do that." The Committee didn't - on Feb. 23, they killed a proposal, which passed the House of Delegates, that would have reduced oral sex or sodomy even between legally married couples to a legal misdemeanor from a felony.
Other witnesses tried and failed to move the Senate committee, including wheelchair-bound Loree Erickson of Richmond. "Under Virginia law, I'm a felon," she told the committee. "It's now considered a felony for me to express intimacy with the person I love the only way I can."
Reforming Virginia's "crimes against nature" law actually got farther than ever when it squeaked through the House of Delegates by one vote - but the missing vote would have killed it. Bedford delegate Lacey Putney missed the vote because of illness, but he has since said he would have voted against reform, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
But there's still a legal challenge at the state Court of Appeals, the paper says, mounted by twelve men who were arrested in a police sting in Roanoke. And three other men, the paper continues, convinced trial juries the law is used to discriminate against gays and lesbians despite the law written to cover heterosexual and homosexual acts alike.
Arlington delegate Karen Darner has tried on several occasions to introduce legislation to repeal the law, which covers even private, consenting adults engaged in oral or anal sex even if legally married. Prostitutes, however, are punished less severely. Darner this time proposed to modify the law down to misdemeanors punishable by $250 fines, rather than felonies drawing up to five years behind bars and fines up to $2,500. Felony convictions usually mean loss of voting rights and many professional credentials.
The Times-Dispatch says pressure on Republican senators from social and religious conservatives killed the bill in the Senate committee. Also testifying against the Darner reform were lobbyists from the Family Foundation. One, Robin Dejarnette, told the panel the U.S. Supreme Court ruled there was no constitutional right to engage in homosexual acts, referring to Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986 - even though Justice Lewis Powell, when he retired, said the strength of the arguments now meant he should have sided with the minority. That case involved a man who was arrested for his bedroom life - a Georgia gay man, Michael Hardwick, arrested for having sex in his own home.
