Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican candidate for governor in Virginia, has apparently decided that the only way to protect children from being raped is by outlawing oral and anal sex for consenting adults. Because that obviously makes sense.
Crimes Against Nature laws — which generally outlawed acts ranging from oral sex to necrophilia — have been mostly been struck down following the 2003 case Lawrence v. Texas, which ruled that a couple cannot be arrested for having consensual sex in private. Rather, this is protected by due process under the 14th Amendment, and this ruling ultimately paved the way for other gay rights cases by overruling earlier laws that prohibited sodomy. It is one of these laws, which Cuccinelli has taken to calling the “Anti-Child Predators Law,” that he thinks is totally necessary to protect children from rape. As his catchy new name for it implies.
Cuccinelli’s stance makes even less sense in light of his behavior in 2004. According to Think Progress, A bill was proposed in Virginia, following Lawrence v. Texas, to keep the parts of the Crimes Against Nature law that would not contradict the Supreme Court’s decision, such as prostitution and issues regarding consent. Cuccinelli not only opposed the bill in committee, but blocked it on the floor.
I think we all want to know how exactly this law would even be enforced. Especially as Cuccinelli claims his proposal is not intended to prosecute consensual sex. Because, you know, that’s illegal now. Because, despite what he might want, adults can’t become registered sex offenders for having consensual sex in the privacy of their own home.
Do you know what is and will remain, regardless of Cuccinelli, illegal? Raping children. Molesting children. Statutory rape. How consenting adults having fun sexy times in private actually has anything to do with making child predators even more illegal remains unclear at best.
(via Slate, image via VAChildPredators)
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