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Virginia Supreme Court Declares 'Fornication Law' Unconstitutional
By: Scott Ross
01-17-2005
RICHMOND, Va. - Singles in Virginia can finally have sex without fear prosecution after Friday’s ruling by the state’s highest court that an archaic law prohibiting sex between unmarried people was unconstitutional.
The unanimous ruling by the Virginia Supreme Court was based on last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Lawrence vs. Texas case, which voided an anti-sodomy law in Texas on the basis that consensual sex was afforded protections of the constitution by “substantive due process.”
A woman who had filed a lawsuit seeking $5 million in damages from a man who infected her with herpes was responsible for bringing the case before the case to the court. A circuit judge who dismissed her case ruled that she was not entitled to damages because she had participated in an illegal activity, referring to the law against sex between consenting unwedded adults.
By declaring the law, which had been on the books since the early 1800s, unconstitutional the Supreme Court reinstated the lawsuit.
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