A Registry Of Gay Sex

[Lonnie]

 

Sodomy laws that labeled gay people sex offenders challenged in court

“I’m outraged that in 2021 that we have what is essentially a registry of gay sex,” attorney Matt Strugar said.

Hundreds of gay rights activists demonstrate against a Supreme Court decision that upheld a Georgia law making sodomy a crime on June 30, 1986, in San Francisco.Norb Von Der Groeben / AP file

 

 

By Dan Avery

Nearly 20 years after the Supreme Court struck down laws criminalizing consensual same-sex activity, the legacy of sodomy bans is still felt across the United States.

In 1993, then-18-year-old Randall Menges was charged under Idaho’s “crimes against nature” law for having sex with two 16-year-old males. All three worked and lived at Pratt Ranch, a cattle ranch in Gem County that doubled as a live-in foster program for troubled teenagers.

Menges was convicted despite police reports indicating the activity was consensual, and the age of consent in Idaho when a defendant is 18 is 16 years old. After serving seven years in prison, he was placed on probation and required to register as a sex offender.

Today, what Menges did wouldn’t be considered an arrestable offense. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that laws criminalizing consensual sodomy or oral sex were unconstitutional. But Idaho still requires people convicted of sodomy or oral sex before the Lawrence v. Texas ruling to be on the state sex offender registry.

His attorney, Matt Strugar, has challenged a similar statue in Mississippi and is representing Menges and a John Doe in a suit against Idaho’s sodomy ban.

Idaho, South Carolina and Mississippi still require people who were convicted of consensual sodomy before the Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence to register as sex offenders, Strugar said, even though the court said what they did wasn’t a crime. There are probably hundreds of people in Menges’ predicament, and forcing them to register as sex offenders is a violation of their right to due process and equal protection under the 14th Amendment, he added.

“I’m outraged that in 2021 that we have what is essentially a registry of gay sex,” Strugar said.

Randall Menges.Courtesy Randall Menges

Hoping to start a new life, Menges moved to Montana in 2018.

“I love the mountains and taking care of horses,” he said. “And I thought the fewer people I had to deal with the better.”

Even before the Montana Legislature officially repealed the state’s ban on same-sex activity — which the Lawrence ruling declared unconstitutional — in 2013, people convicted under the statute weren’t required to register as sex offenders. But a law passed in 2005 mandates that individuals on a registry in another state must register as sex offenders if they move to Montana.

Menges filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana in December, challenging the constitutionality of Montana’s policy. In filings shared with NBC News, he said being on the registry “has damaged dozens of employment opportunities and personal relationships.”

 

No one believes him about why he has to register as a sex offender, he told NBC News. “If they find out, I lose their friendship,” he said. “Even girlfriends, they don’t buy it.”

The same month he filed his suit, Menges said he was turned away from a homeless shelter in Boise, which he returned to temporarily in 2020.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Montana did not return a request for comment on the case. In opening arguments March 30, Montana Assistant Attorney General Hannah Tokerud argued Menges was trying to get a Montana court to weigh in on Idaho law.

According to the Missoulian, she said the case doesn’t hinge on the validity of that statute, but rather “it hinges on whether he is required to register in Idaho.”

"Montana requires Menges to register not because of his criminal offense," the state wrote in a motion to dismiss in January, "but because Montana gives credit to other states’ determinations about convicted offenders who are required to register."

“Idaho has determined that Menges must register, and thus, when Menges moved to Montana he was required to register,” the state wrote.

But Strugar said Montana is trying to “pass the buck” to another state while continuing to enforce what he calls an “unlawful” policy.

Menges isn’t seeking to overturn his conviction, he said — the statute of limitations passed a year after his conviction. He just wants to be free of the shadow that’s been cast over his life.

“If someone’s not a molester or a rapist, they shouldn't be subjected to what I have,” Menges said. “If we can change the law, at least it’ll have been worth it.”

Ultimately he’d like to return to Montana, where the cost of living is lower and he can work with horses.

“I’ve had a passion for horses since I was 6. I’d like to get my equine veterinary nursing degree and take care of them, maybe for a rodeo or for private individuals,” he said. “I just want to go where I want and make the choices I want without this hanging over me.”

[PeterRS]

Many may not be aware that sodomy laws remain in the statute books of various countries around the world. In Asia, this is true in Singapore and Malaysia. It was also true in Brunei until the much stricter homophobic Sharia law was introduced.

The reason is primarily the 1860s law enacted by the Parliament in London prohibiting sex between two men. Allegedly as originally drafted, the law had also specified two women. But when it went to Queen Victoria for ratification, she ordered the part relating to women to be struck out since she did not believe it possible that any woman could have sex without a man! With the British Empire ruling much of the globe, the law was eventually enacted in all British colonial territories. When the Brits started buggering off [sic] and leaving their colonies independent after World War 2, that law was still on the statue books in London and elsewhere. But then Britain repealed the law in 1967. Many of the newly independent countries decided just to keep the law.

Singapore's Prime Minster has stated the law is necessary in his multi ethnic society, but it will not be used to take action against individuals in their own homes. But the island state has used the law to bolster its decision not to permit a Gay Pride Parade. Instead, a group of gay individuals got together to organise an annual Pink Dot assembly in a public Park which many thousands attend, many with their families. Again the government has tried to control this, first by not permitting non-Singaporeans to join and then prohibiting overseas corporations (of which there are many in Singapore) from becoming sponsors.  

It is perhaps ironic that the Prime Minister's nephew is openly gay and married his partner in South Africa a couple of years ago. At that year's Pink Dot celebration, the couple attended along with both sets of parents!

Hong Kong used to have the same law and would regularly make sure it was used to have 2 or 3 individuals convicted and jailed for a couple of years. At that time, Hong Kong did have a register of gay men. The colony had just two gay bars. One had a set of stairs running down from the street. This was brightly illuminated because the police had set up cameras in an apartment across the road and photographed everyone who came out. The other on Kowloon had a police informant as one of the bartenders. At the end of the 1970s, the police even set up a special branch to seek out known homosexuals. As soon as this was announced, one High Court Judge quickly left Hong Kong for good. I doubt if that department and its lists still exist, though.

In 1990 both China and Britain realised that Hong Kong would need to have a Bill of Rights registered with the United Nations to take effect after 1997. Both sides agreed that the anti-sodomy law would immediately be struck down.

[BiBottomBoy]

If they really had a list of people who engage in gay sex half the GOP in the south would be on that list