A Stitch in Haste

Some people accuse me of having a (very slight) bias against Utah. I can't imagine why.

So as a gesture of good will, I am (sorta kinda) coming to Utah's defense:

Tucked inside a bill that greatly increases the punishment for sex crimes is a political bombshell.

Sen. Scott McCoy, D-Salt Lake City, amended the House-passed bill to make sodomy among consenting adults legal.

And while he faced no opposition Wednesday from a five-member Senate committee, the provision is sure to raise eyebrows when it hits the Senate floor.

McCoy, the state's only openly gay senator, drafted his own bill that would have removed Utah's anti-sodomy law, but conservative Republicans led by West Jordan GOP Sen. Chris Buttars have blocked it from a public hearing.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 2003 Texas case that every state's anti-sodomy law is unconstitutional. But even if Utah's law blocking anal or oral sex is not enforceable, some lawmakers don't want to get rid of it for political reasons.

Now before you rush to point to Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), and lament how obnoxious it is for the Utah legislature to tiptoe (pussyfoot?) around the straightforward question of repealing a criminal sodomy statute that is null and void forever more, consider the following.

Another state's highest court declared, 23 years before Lawrence, that the state's criminal sodomy statute was unconstitutional. The state legislature, however, disgracefully waited 20 years before finally repealing the statute.

Care to guess which state that was?

So yes, Utah politicians are being mockworthy by not having the "tabernacles" to do the right thing and repeal the unconstitutional law. But they're hardly unique about it.

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SLIGHTY RELATED: New Jersey is, finally, taking steps toward removing the word "idiot" from its constitution. Keep in mind that "idiot," "imbecile" and "moron" were once quite specific intelligence designations based on IQ, not just interchangeable pejoratives.