In 1842 Florida was a U.S. territory. It would be another three years before it became a state and people were already saying #florida or #floridaman.
Not really, but only because they didn’t have the internet. Florida passed a law that demanded the death penalty for people convicted of sodomy. In doing so Florida became the first jurisdiction in the United States in 123 years to make sodomy a capital offense
That law remained on the books until 1868 when the maximum punishment was reduced to 20 years.
In the 1920’s it was decided that consensual oral sex between adults also constituted sodomy and was punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
You may be wondering when that law was finally removed all together. It hasn’t been removed. Sodomy, both oral and anal intercourse, is still illegal in the State of Florida, as well as a dozen other states.
Those laws are unenforceable though, at least since the Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003. That hasn’t stopped the states that have those laws from treating gay people like dirt whenever possible though, and just because the law was unenforceable doesn’t mean gay couples weren’t still being arrested for the “crime.”
The Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 that it is unconstitutional to bar consensual sex between adults, calling it a violation of the 14th Amendment. That doesn’t mean that states can not make laws about sex between consenting adults, only that those laws must apply to all. They can’t target a specific group of people while allowing another group(s) a pass.
Now they can’t target, but they sure were targeting gay people in in the 1960’s, The Gay Rights Movement started to pick up steam and the social stigma of being gay began to diminish.
The leadership of many states, especially in the South, did not like that. They took to rewriting Sodomy laws so they applied exclusively to same sex couples. Other states decided that the sodomy laws they had would not be applied to private heterosexual conduct, leaving what amounted to same-sex only laws in effect across most of the United States.
Those laws were used to justify denying gay people housing, as well as jobs.
The logic of the time being, they were not discriminating against people, they were holding people accountable for their conduct. “Those people” were breaking the law.
Those laws were also used to keep Gay people from raising children. The law justified denying gay parents custody of their own children, as well as preventing gay people from adopting, or being foster parents to other children.
Those laws, and the arrests made because of those laws, were used very publicly, to deny gay people equal treatment, and to attack and discredit the voices within the Gay Rights Movement.
And what of the states that still have those laws on the books, why would they keep them when they are unenforceable?
They keep them as a reminder to the LGBTQ Community that there are still people who do not believe that love is love. There are still people who carry hate within their hearts. They keep those laws to intimidate the LGBTQ Community.
Those laws are to the homophobic what the Confederate statues and monuments are to the racists.
It is long past time for them all to come down.
