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For the sixth consecutive year, a bill was drafted in the Rhode Island legislature to repeal a 102-year-old law that makes it illegal to engage in anal or oral sex.

The 1896 law, which covers the "abominable and detestable crime against nature," calls for a prison term of at least seven years and up to 20 years for those found guilty of fellatio, cunnilingus, or anal intercourse.

"This is probably the most ignored law since the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit," said John Roney, a state senator from Providence and co-sponsor of one of the repeal bills. "It makes the majority of adults in Rhode Island felons."

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But the law is not entirely ignored. In September 1997, police in North Smithfield tried to make a case against two men who had consensual sex in the woods. The incident came to light when one of them went to the police to complain that his wallet was stolen during the encounter. Cops tracked down the alleged pickpocket and charged both men with "abominable and detestable crimes against nature." After lobbying by local gay groups and the American Civil Liberties Union, Rhode Island Attorney General Jeffrey Pine declined to bring the charges to trial.

"Anachronistic laws are dangerous," Roney says. "Like buried bombs, they await only the right circumstances to do harm."

In lobbying for the repeal bill he co-sponsored, Roney argued that "the vast majority" of couples practice oral or anal sex. Without ever advancing the radical claim that the state had no business regulating consensual sexual conduct, those spearheading the repeal effort came up with some novel arguments. "Many disabled persons cannot engage in intercourse," noted legislator Edith Ajello. "For them, oral sex may be the only form of sexual expression." Repeal of the sodomy law might even induce more groups to stage their conventions in the Ocean State, she suggested.

But Attorney General Pine remained adamantly in the law's favor. While he felt that the law shouldn't be applied to consenting adults in private, he said the law is a useful tool in cases where "there is clearly a victim." Even when they have other sex laws at their disposal to apply in cases when sex is forced, prosecutors like having the freedom to throw on additional charge to bolster an otherwise weak criminal prosecution.

The upshot of all this? None of the proposed repeal bills even made it out of committee. The Ocean State's anti-sodomy law remains intact, in bad company with those of 21 other US states.

Editor's Note: Submitted by Gode Davis