'Crime Against Nature' Repeal Debated
Busloads of religious fundamentalists came
to the state legislative building in Raleigh
September 27 to urge the Criminal Code
Revision Study Committee to keep the current
sex laws on the books.
In response, seven speakers urged the
committee to abandon laws that prohibit
private sexual acts between consenting adults.
The committee is studying a new criminal
code proposed in 1981 by the North Carolina
Criminal Code Commission. The earlier
commission, which was created in 1969 to
review the state’s criminal laws, recommended
that state laws prohibiting adultery,
cohabitation and “crime against nature” not
be carried forward-into the new code.
Committee meetings normally are sedate
occasions, attended only by the 12 committee
members, their staff and a small group of
lobbyists. On September 27 the committee
hearing room was packed with almost 200
people, many wearing big red badges
proclaiming “Keep Crime Against Nature” or
“No Revision in Sex Laws”. Many had
brought babies and children for the day-long
meeting.
The Rev. Grant Price began the parade of
fundamentalist speakers by proclaiming, “We
strongly condemn homosexuality.” Referring
to the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah,
Price said, “The same afflictions continue to
plague us today. Homosexuality has
destroyed every nation that has gone over to it.
We have only one alternative — Repent!”
Mary Johnson of Buies Creek said that she
had searched the proposed criminal code to
find the laws that are currently on the books.
“Crime against nature, fornication and
adultery, and persons of the opposite sex
occupying a motel room — they are all
repealed,” Johnson said. “I feel betrayed.”
Johnson quoted articles from Boston’s Gay
Community News and the New York Native
that she said showed that “homosexuals want
to engage in sex in public” and have sex with
young children.
“How can law enforcement officials protect
families and children if the crime against
nature law is abolished?” she asked. When
Johnson finished, she asked those who agreed
with her to stand. Most of the crowd, which
had apparently been invited by Johnson,
stood — and then left with her.
Eric Prevatte, who said he represented the
Lumberton Chamber of Commerce and nine
churches, said that his concerns were child sex
abuse, child prostitution and pedophilia.
Prevatte quoted a Charlotte Observer story
about a pedophile who, according to Prevatte,
said that “pedophilia is just another sexual
orientation.”
“When we remove the crime against nature
law,” Prevatte said, “we legalize
homosexuality and bestiality anywhere that
they want to do it.”
Hank Vandergriff said that “repealing
crime against nature could be construed to
legitimate that particular lifestyle.”
Vandergriff said that because he was young
and slender, he was often approached by
homosexuals. “I have been the subject of
harassment by homosexuals,” he said, “even
to the point of being lured to people’s
apartments - padlocked in people’s
apartments.”
The Rev. Coy C. Privette, executive
director of the Christian Action League, a
statewide conservative religious lobbying
group, said that changing the “crime against
nature” la w could “open the d oors of our state
to deviant behavior.”
Mike McIntyre, an attorney and chairman
of the Young Democrats in the 7th
Congressional District, also urged the
committee to keep the “crime against nature"
law.
He said that although “homosexuals
represent only 10% of the population,” they
burdened society heavily. He quoted
“statistics” that purported to show that gays
are resposible for almost all of the sexually
transmitted diseases in the United States.
“Homosexuals are 20 times more apt to
molest children than heterosexuals,”
McIntyre also said.
Rev. Larry Griswold of Roanoke Rapids
said the “crime against nature” law should be
retained to prevent the spread of homosexual
behavior. “We’re a farming community,” he
said. “When we sow com, corn comes up. In
Atlantic City they sowed gambling. And do
you know what’s happened in Atlantic City?
Crime prevails. When the law of God is
perverted, crime will prevail.”
After eight speakers opposing changes in
the “crime against nature” and other sex laws,
the first speaker came to the stand to support
the proposed changes. John Boddie.a Raleigh
attorney, said that the legitimate concerns of
the previous speakers were all dealt with in the
proposed code. Various sections of the code,
he said, punished sexual assaults, sex with
minors, public sex, bestiality and kidnapping.
“The issue before this committee is whether
to carry forward into a new code the current
laws dealing with cohabitation, adultery and
crime against nature,” Boddie said. “If these
laws were to be fully enforced, we would be
incarcerating a majority of the population of
North Carolina.”
The fundamentalist crowd erupted in boos
and hisses, and the committee’s co-chair,
Senator James Edwards of Granite Falls,
reprimanded the crowd for its outburst.
continued on page 4
Charlotte CRC Studies
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community
Relations Committee has voted to study
homosexuality as a first step toward taking
action on a list of seven recommendations
proposed by a Charlotte gay man who says he
has suffered harassment, according to stories
in the Charlotte Observer and Q- Notes.
Several months ago, Gilbert Dale Cornelius
submitted his recommendations to the
committee. Cornelius, a former college
English teacher, has often written pro-gay
letters to Charlotte newspapers, some of
which have been quoted in The Front Page.
At that time, Cornelius addressed the
committee, testifying about the harassment he
has been subject to since childhood. He
explained how the verbal abuse made him feel
“rejected by the world” and “isolated.” Dr.
Sherman Burson, chair of the committee’s
Human Resources Subcommittee, described
Cornelius’s address as “articulate.”
Cornelius closed his address with seven
recommendations to the committee:
• To actively seek two representatives from
the gay community to sit on the committee.
• To encourage input from gay/lesbian
individuals.
• To speak out as individuals and as a
committee to address antigay incidents.
MBB—i
• To urge all appointed citizen committees
to include gay men and lesbians.
• To support broadening existing
antidiscrimination ordinances to include gay
men and lesbians.
• To develop educational programs about
the damage caused by antigay abuse.
• To design a program that would help
parents learn not to condemn gay children,
but rather to rear them with love and
acceptance.
On August 9, Cornelius sent a letter to the
committee describing an August 6 incident in
which he was hit, kicked, and called “faggot”
by a man after Cornelius refused to give him a
cigarette while waiting for a bus. Cornelius
said that the city bus driver did nothing when
the verbal abuse continued after he boarded
the bus. Instead, the driver said to the men
abusing Cornelius, “You guys are so funny;
I’m enjoying it.”
In the same letter, Cornelius talked about
growing up “in the 1950s — a hard time” and
being “a bright young man [who] was called
queer.” He recalled how, returning home fora
college vacation, he learned that a high school
friend had been imprisoned for
homosexuality. “Now,” Cornelius said, “I was
not only anxious, but frightened as well.”
Because of the letter, the Community
Relations Committee, at its August 29
meeting, passed a motion to adopt the
recommendations of its Human Resources
Subcommittee. As a result, it will hold a fact
finding meeting on September 19 to define
“the condition of homosexuality." Clinical
and academic psychologists will be invited to
address the full committee.
continued on page 3
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