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Apparently, there’s an emergency in the great state of Virginia. High school students are having too much oral and anal sex, and it’s time to start throwing them in prison for it — making them felons for the rest of their lives.
So says Virginia Republican state senator Thomas A. Garrett, who was unsurprisingly endorsed by failed former Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli.
Garrett is attempting to resurrect Virginia’s “crimes against nature” statute. Cuccinelli, as Virginia’s AG, tried to convince the U.S. Supreme Court that the law was both necessary or constitutional. He failed.
Of course, the goal behind the bill is to make sex between two people of the same gender more consequential. The bill does not make penile-vaginal sex between minors a felony, because that’s not a “crime against nature.”
Josh Israel at Think Progress notes that “under Virginia law, anyone who encourages or asks another to commit a felony is automatically guilty of a felony. As such, while an adult having consensual vaginal intercourse with a 16- or 17-year-old would be a misdemeanor, an adult simply asking a 17-year-old for oral sex would be a Class 5 felony.”
Israel adds that “Virginia law permits heterosexual 16 or 17 years old to marry,”  but under “Garrett’s bill, two 17-year-olds could be legally wed but would both become felons if they engaged in oral sex — or even suggested doing so.”
And with Virginia’s marriage inequality constitutional amendment, a 17-year-old same-sex couple would not only be unable to marry, but would each be guilty of a felony if they engaged in any sexual relations at all.
That “emergency” part?
The bill’s language claims “an emergency exists and this act is in force from its passage.”
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Image via Thomas A. Garrett’s Facebook page