10
Thursday, February 26,1998
Critics urge lawmakers to repeal state bans on oral sex
■ Fifteen states currently
have laws explicitly banning
anal or oral sex.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PROVIDENCE, R.I. Because of
Americans’ ho-hum attitudes about sup
posed sex acts between President
Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, some
critics of dusty old state bans on oral sex
are hoping those laws will be repealed.
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Fifteen states, including Rhode Island
and North Carolina, have laws banning
oral or anal sex outright, while six oth
ers have statutes forbidding the sex acts
between homosexuals, according to the
American Civil Liberties Union. The
laws have various names: “Unnatural
and Lascivious Acts,” “Unnatural and
Perverted Sexual Practices,” and
“Crimes Against Nature”
The statutes rarely are enforced and
some are on hold pending court chal
lenges, but critics say leaving them on
STATE & NATIONAL
the books opens people to the possibili
ty of being prosecuted.
Critics hope the fact many Americans
are unconcerned with Clinton’s sex life
will persuade lawmakers to erase the
laws.
“Surveys show that a vast majority of
us don’t care what the president does as
long as it is consensual,” said
Democratic state Sen. John Roney, who
has submitted a bill to eliminate Rhode
Island’s law against “Abominable and
Detestable Crimes Against Nature”
“If you engage in oral sex in Rhode
Island with your wife, you are subject to
a felony prosecution and conviction,”
Roney said.
Aside from Rhode Island, states with
laws banning certain sex acts between
heterosexuals and homosexuals are:
Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia,
Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan,
Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi,
North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah
and Virginia, according to the ACLU.
Louisiana’s law has been temporarily
blocked pending a trial, Alabama’s does
n’t apply to married couples, and courts
in Michigan and Massachusetts have
indicated the laws don’t apply to con
sensual sex.
Same-sex bans are on the books in
Arkansas, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri,
Oklahoma and Texas, the ACLU says.
Court challenges are pending in
Arkansas, Kansas and Maryland, while
a Texas court has said the law probably
would be declared unconstitutional if
challenged.
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IN THE NEWS,
Top stories from the state, nation and world.
Clinton mourns lives lost
to tornadoes, pledges aid.
KISSIMMEE, Fla. Quoting from
the Bible and stroking the hand of a
shaken survivor, President Clinton
mourned lives lost to Florida tornadoes
and pledged federal help in rebuilding
“brick by brick, home by home.”
The president also voiced interest
Wednesday in an early warning system
that could use existing U.S. satellites to
forecast tornadoes.
“Americans are praying for you and
pulling for you, and whatever it is with
in our power to do to help you return to
normal lives, we will do,” Clinton told
survivors and rescue workers.
A $3 million Department of Labor
grant for temporarily unemployed-
Floridians marked the first of millions
of dollars in federal aid to the state in
response to the twisters that cut through
central Florida on Monday killing at
least 38 people.
Clinton, whose helicopter circled low
three times over the Winter Garden area
outside Orlando, held his chin in his left
hand as he viewed the aftermath: an
upended ranch-style house, its lower
half dissolved into a wreck of shards
shoved into the ground; an American
flag fixed to a stubby pole in the lawn
outside a flattened home.
He said his own home state,
Arkansas, is too familiar with torna
does’ random, deadly power.
“No matter how many of these I
have seen over the last 20 years, I don’t
think anybody can fail to be moved and
awestruck by ... the lives and the trea
sures that can be taken away in a matter
of just a few seconds,” Clinton said at
the destroyed Ponderosa Park
Campground.
Mad cow disease effects
European Union beef ban
BRUSSELS, Belgium Butchers
could no longer sell T-bone steaks and
lamb chops in some countries under the
latest European Union proposal to stop
the spread of mad cow disease.
The European Commission, the
executive body of the 15-nation
European Union, on Wednesday pro
posed expanding the list of banned
meat products to include meat on the
bone. But it suggested exempting coun
tries with no history of the brain-wast
ing ailment in cattle. Seven countries
have already applied for exemptions.
The commission also proposed rules
requiring governments to give prompt
notice of the emergence of the disease
in their herds. The proposals must be
approved by EU member countries.
Mad cow disease bovine spongi
form encephalopathy, or BSE has
been linked to a similar brain ailment in
humans, Creutzfeld-Jakob disease.
Creutzfeld-Jakob has killed a dozen
people in Britain, which has had the
vast majority of BSE cases in the EU.
The EU’s current list of banned
parts, believed to pose the highest risk of
mad cow transmission, includes the
skull, brains, eyes, tonsils and spinal
cord of cattle over 1 year old and the
spleens of sheep and goats.
The European Commission wants to
add the pituitary gland, intestines and
the entire vertebral column.
Many of these parts are used to make
pharmaceutical and cosmetic products.
Castro reflected, vows
socialism will continue
MEXICO CITY Elected to a fifth
term as president, Fidel Castro vowed,
socialism in Cuba will outlive him and
denounced a U.S. aid proposal for the
island.
Castro’s seven-hour speech to the
opening of anew session of parliament
ended shortly after midnight'
Wednesday its marathon length rem- •
iniscent of his speeches in the early
years after his 1959 revolution.
The 601-memberparliament, elected
in January, opened its five-year term .;
Tuesday by re-electing Castro and other
top members of the Council of State,
which works in conjunction with the
Cabinet. Castro was the only presiden
tial candidate, and all the deputies were
elected unchallenged.
In his wide-ranging speech, Castro*
71, declared Cuba’s single-party com-,
munist system “untouchable” and said -
those who predict a “post-Castro trans
formation” are wrong.
“To suppose that the death of one
individual could liquidate the work of a
people ... is really ridiculous,” Castro '
said. His remarks were relayed by
reporters in Havana and by the Cuban
government’s Prensa Latina news
agency, monitored in Mexico City.
Castro also denounced a proposal
before the U.S. Congress to distribute
limited aid through U.S. charitable orga
nization as “humiliating. We accept
with dignity that any country wants to
help us,” he said. “But we are not dis
posed to play the role of beggars.”
He ridiculed those who believe that
easing the U.S. embargo of Cuba would
help topple socialism by bringing
greater contact with Americans.
FROM WIRE REPORTS