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Original Articles

Individual Liberty vs. Social Control: Are Consensual Sex Laws Constitutional?

Pages 20-25 | Published online: 22 Jan 2015
 

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the possibility that consensual sex law reform will be forced, in some cases, by Supreme Court rulings on the constitutionality of the laws. The most common attacks on laws prohibiting such acts as sodomy, fellatio, and cunnilingus have been based on the explicit constitutional guarantees of due process, equal protection, and freedom of religion, and the implied guarantee of a right to privacy. It is this last approach—based on the right of privacy—that will apparently be the most successful in having statutes voided. The due process approach would most likely result only in revision of the statute and not repeal, and the success of the freedom of religion approach rests on showing that the law serves no secular purpose.

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