The Right of Intimate Association
This chapter discusses laws regulating sexual relations between consenting adults (married or not) and laws regulating gay and lesbian sexual relations. At one time, all of the states adopted criminal laws forbidding sodomy and many states also criminally prohibited fornication and adultery. In modern times, state courts began to rule that these criminal laws were unconstitutional. These decisions were part of a growing recognition that an individual's sex life was a private matter that simply was no business of the government. In 1992, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that a statute making it a crime to engage in sexual relations with a person of the same sex violated the rights of individual liberty and equal treatment guaranteed by the state constitution. Several other state courts rendered similar decisions, eventually leading the United States Supreme Court to follow suit and overrule its previous decision to the contrary.
Keywords: sodomy, fornication, adultery, gay and lesbian sexual relations
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