Did you know? Some sex law trivia to be used as conversation starters at holiday parties everywhere.

I wrote my senior thesis on gay marriage and the rights denied to gay and lesbian couples. This was ten years ago and I think I achieved a D on the paper, as it was too biased to be considered anthropological which maintains a non judgemental examination. I remember handing it in about half an hour after including the mornings news that Clinton had upheld and passed the law against gay marriage that had been handed down from congress. Are you kidding me? The man put a cigar into the vagina of his twenty something intern in the oval office, who is he to pass a law that governs who can get married?
But I digress. Here is the issue I want to raise; we saw this monumental shift in racial equality by electing the first African American family into the white house and then passed proposition 8. Getting angry does me no good but providing information does. Here are a list and brief summaries of laws that were upheld against sex acts and sexuality in America. They are absurd, much like Proposition 8 will seem one day.*
Contraceptives
1943 Tileston v. 1961 Ullman Poe v. Ullman- congrees upholds a law preventing the purchase of any item or medicine that would be used as a CONTRACEPTIVES.
1965 Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479- a law that passed 7-2 in congress that stated that the law against purchasing contraceptives was an invasion of a married couples privacy.
1943 Tileston v. Ullman - The law is now in place that all couples, not just married ones, can purchase contraceptives.
1977 Carey v. Population Services International- Minors under 16 years of age can now legally buy contraceptives.
MARRIAGE AND DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP
1964 McLaughlin v. Florida,- unmarried interracial couples can now live in the same home and share the same room at night.
1967 McLaughlin v. Florida,- It is now unconstitutional to ban interracial marriages.
SEX ACTS
1976 State of Iowa v. Robert Eugene Pilcher- it is now legal to have sexual acts with someone other than one's spouse.
1977 State of New Jersey v. Saunders- it is now legal to have sex before marriage.
1982 Carey v. Population Services International, Federal District Court finds Texas Sodomy Law unconstitutional, however, Court of Appeals overturns it and holds law to be constitutional.
1986 Bowers v. Hardwick- Consensual sex acts between people of same sex can be illegal.
2003 Lawrence v. Texas,A Texas law making sodomy with same-sex partner illegal, but not with opposite sex, is unconstitutional. (This case expressly overturns the above account, Bowers v. Hardwick).
It is important to note that though some of these laws were not enforced they were still laws that could lead to prosecution and in case's like Bowers v Hardwick, they did arrest and prosecute Michael Hardwick for engaging in consensual oral sex with another man.

But I save the best for last.
Oral sex was still illegal between consenting teenagers in Georgia back in the long long ago of 2004. Poor 17 year old Genarlow Wilson got a mandatory 10 year sentence for child molestation after receiving consensual oral sex from a 15 year old girl. Thankfully the Georgia Supreme Court order Wilson's release 3 years later on the grounds that it was cruel and unusual punishment.

So go on with gratitude in your hearts for the people that had to fight for that human luxury of love, sex and the pursuit of equality.

*The whole notion of consensual crimes is ridiculous and nauseating to me. There is a great book that, though huge, is a good read if you ever decide to further educate yourself on this topic. 'Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Society' by Peter McWilliams