In Michigan The Senate Decides That Sodomy Will Get You Fifteen Years In Prison

Run for the hills, Michiganders! Your state Senate has passed a bill that reaffirms the state's unconstitutional law making sodomy a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. 

Yes, despite that pesky Supreme Court ruling back in 2003 — Lawrence v. Texas — Michigan is one of more than a dozen states that still have sodomy bans on the books. Now some of those other states’ sodomy laws specifically target gay relations, Michigan's is among those that make oral and anal sex crimes illegal regardless of whether they're same-sex or different-sex.

No matter you’re orientation, if you go down or bend over, you’re doin’ jail time, people!

But, Michigan’s sodomy ban is also intertwined with a prohibition on bestiality — kinda making the two seem like the same thing. The law makes it a felony for anyone to commit "the abominable and detestable crime against nature with mankind or with any animal."

Now, if you’ve already been convicted of a sex crime in Michigan, and then get caught sodomizing, or perhaps being sodomized, well, you’re looking at life in prison.

For the last several years, Michigan legislators have been trying to pass Logan's Law, which is designed to keep pets out of the hands of animal abusers — a law I am all for — but Senate Bill 219, by GOP … naturally… Senator Rick Jones updates language in the state's ban on bestiality and sodomy as follows: 

SB 219 passed the Senate last week with the above language intact, and is expected to be considered by the House as early as next week. 

Now, Michigan lawmakers could remove their unconstitutional ban on sodomy by simply striking out the words "either with mankind or" from SB 219 but Senator Jones says that jeopardize the whole bill. 

"The minute I cross that line and I start talking about the other stuff, I won’t even get another hearing. It’ll be done. Nobody wants to touch it. I would rather not even bring up the topic, because I know what would happen. You’d get both sides screaming and you end up with a big fight that’s not needed because it’s unconstitutional."

Jones would like to see Michigan’s outdated and stupid sodomy laws struck down, and removed from legal books, but:

"[If] you focus on it, people just go ballistic. If we could put a bill in that said anything that’s unconstitutional be removed from the legal books of Michigan, that’s probably something I could vote for, but am I going to mess up this dog bill that everybody wants? No."

So, because there are people in Michigan who are cruel to animals — and should be punished to the full extent of the law, mind you — and because legislators refuse to discuss sex, it remains illegal in the state to go downtown or to turn around and grab your ankles.

Seriously.

NCRM