AG Cuccinelli Launches Website Supporting VA Sodomy laws

The Cuccinelli campaign says those listed will be removed form the sex offenders list and endanger children if VA's sodomy laws are not upheld.
GayRVA Staff
GayRVA Staff
July 17, 2013

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Cuccinelli

Virginia Attorney General, and Republican Gubernatorial Candidate, Ken Cuccinelli has launched a website to build support for his fight to keep VA sodomy laws on the books, and attack Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe.

The website, http://www.vachildpredators.com/, allows people to enter their zip code and see the sex offenders convicted of sodomy violations in their area. The Cuccinelli campaign says those listed will be removed form the sex offenders list and endanger children if VA’s sodomy laws are not upheld.

“The above map shows only 90 of the sexual predators in areas across the Commonwealth that have been convicted under the law that has protected children,” states the site. “These are the 90 predators that could come off Virginia’s sex offender registry if the Virginia law used to protect children from predators is not upheld.”

Cuccinelli’s fight to keep sodomy laws on Virginia’s books come 10 years after sodomy laws were ruled unconstitutional. In a case from earlier this year, William MacDonald, who was accused of sodomy after having sex with two minor girls, managed to take VA’s sodomy laws the district court which ruled them unconstitutional.

In an opinion written by Judge Robert King, one of the district judges that heard the MacDonald case, he suggested Virginia’s General assembly should be the ones removing the Sodomy law, or re-defining it. “The anti-sodomy provision does not mention the word “minor,”” wrote King, “nor does it remotely suggest that the regulation of sexual relations between adults and children had anything to do with its enactment.”

In an earlier conversation with Lambda Legal’s Gregg Nevins, it was explained that the solution to VA’s problems is not keeping an unconstitutional law, but rather working with the state’s general assembly to develop laws that address the issues. “It’s not a ruling that VA can’t have a sodomy law, but they can’t rely on the old sodomy law which doesn’t require any of those things that might make it a legitimate law, it just says “anyone who has oral or anal sex is a felony.” That dog wont hunt,” said Nevins. “They need to give up the fight and pass a legitimate law if that’s what they want.”

In the statement announcing the sex-offender search, the Cuccinelli campaign calls out Terry McAuliffe on his lack of comment on this issue saying McAuliffe, when asked about his stance on Cuccinelli’s sodomy fight, said “I don’t know anything about that. . . . I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”

Cuccinelli, after failing to get a second hearing at the district court, appealed the overturning of VA’s Sodomy laws to the Supreme Court in late June.