WASHINGTON — Recently passed Senate legislation would make sodomy and sex with animals legal under military law, ending long-standing prohibitions.
The bill, which the Senate passed 93-7 last week, would repeal Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that states any person who engages in “unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy.” Those found guilty are subject to court martial.
Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said Thursday that the repeal was simply a legal change because it is no longer constitutional. A 2003 Supreme Court decision struck down a Texas ban on sodomy as an unconstitutional intrusion on privacy.
Senate negotiators are working to reconcile their version of the bill with the House- passed measure and produce final legislation that sets policy for the Pentagon.
