Yes, it's technically illegal under state law to have anal or oral sex in Michigan, but that antiquated law is not enforced and is nullified by federal law to the contrary. Nonetheless, the blogosphere rediscovered that archaic bit of status quo this week after old language in a new bill targeted at animal abusers prompted widespread social media outrage at the Michigan legislature for trying to ban certain kinds of nookie when they should be figuring out how to help the people of Flint get safe drinking water.
Senate Bill , sponsored by Sen. The legislature has been trying to pass "Logan's Law" -- so named for a husky that was tortured and killed with acid -- for several years.
A proposed statewide abuser registry that was considered too unwieldy tripped up earlier versions. Coupled with S. Unfortunately, because S. The bill passed the Senate with that language, which has been in the Logan's Law bill for several years now because Michigan is one of more than a dozen states with a sodomy ban still on the books, an archaic year-old law that's part of the state penal code, Act of The Internet soon took notice.
On Feb. Although Michigan does technically outlaw sodomy, it's a meaningless restriction. Federal law trumps state law and in , the U. Supreme Court tossed nationwide sodomy laws that criminalized consensual homosexual sex when deciding the case Lawrence v. Just last year, the high court followed that up by ruling the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage.
The police know you can't enforce a ban on consensual adult sodomy. So, why is the ban still on the books? Basically, because no lawmaker thus far has the courage to try and remove the word "with mankind" from the law. Getting into the weeds on unenforceable sodomy language threatens a bill that lawmakers have been pushing for several years, said Jones. Striking arcane laws from the books is not the task at hand right now. We'll debate it and see what happens," he said.
