Court Opinion

ID: 9728332
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:05:12.977963+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:47.620672
License: Public Domain

Weintraub, C. J.
(concurring). I concur in the result although I have reservations as to the constitutionality of the application of the sodomy statute to a consensual act between adults committed in private. As to a homosexual act thus committed, I doubt the existence of a public interest sufficient to justify an edict that the homosexual shall behave as a heterosexual or not at all. The failure to recognize a status within which homosexuals may lawfully follow the dictates of their nature makes the application of punitive measures still more questionable. And I doubt that in dealing criminally with extramarital sexual relations between heterosexuals the Legislature may deal differently with a deviant act or may in any event authorize the same punishment for a deviant act whether consented to or not. That the punitive approach is futile seems evident. Consenting adults are prosecuted rarely if at all.
.But this is not the case in which to grapple with the constitutional issue. The factual versions of the State and of *399the defense were such that there was no room for a finding that the anal penetration was consented to even though the vaginal penetration was not. The finding that there was a rape necessarily involved a finding that there was an attack upon the victim and that all of the injuries were inflicted against her will.
For reversal in part and affirmance in part — Chief Justice Weintbaub, Justices Jacobs, Hall and Mountain, and Judge Sullivan — 5.
Opposed — Hone.