The Pentagon has asked Congress to repeal the military ban on consensual sodomy, bringing it into line with a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
Under U.S. military law, consensual sodomy -- oral or anal sex -- even in a heterosexual relationship, can bring a sentence of five years in jail.
In an April 7 letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Pentagon's Principal Deputy General Counsel Daniel J. Dell'Orto asked that the blanket ban on sodomy be lifted and replaced with a ban on sodomy by force and sodomy of a child, based on a recommendation by the Joint Service Committee on Military Justice.
The JSC is also recommending that the manual for courts-martial include a new section that would ban all sexual acts between consensual adults that harm good order and discipline.
An independent panel convened in 2001to review the Uniform Code of Military Justice found that the laws against sodomy prosecutions were selectively pursued and sometimes "vindictive," used to trump up charges against people accused of other violations.
The Supreme Court struck down a Texas anti-sodomy law in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas.
© Copyright 2005 by United Press International
