Box Turtle Bulletin

The Daily Agenda for Monday, January 16

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in honor of the great civil rights legend and his work in securing the blessings of liberty and equality for all people. While it has been a federal holiday since 1986, only about a third of American employers make this day a paid holiday for their employees, which makes the goal of this day being a day of community service a difficult one to attain. It’s strange, this ambivalence we Americans seem to have for him. Perhaps its because he reminds us that he fought for the very same principles we pat ourselves on our collective backs for on the Fourth of July, despite our uneven history of ensuring those freedoms for everyone. He is our uncomfortable reminder that as a nation we have feet of clay; we don’t always live up to our promises. But he also reminds us of what we aspire to be. Not just us, but all lovers of freedom and equality around the world — even in places (perhaps especially in places) where his image has been co-opted by those who have no respect for freedom. So let’s pause and reflect on Dr. King’s fight for a nation of justice and equality for all, and redouble our efforts wherever there is a failure to uphold his vision and that of our forefathers more than two centuries ago.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Louisiana Supreme Court Upholds Conviction of Lesbians for “Unnatural Carnal Copulation”: 1967. Convictions of women for “crimes against nature” have been exceedingly rare in our nation’s history, but  the Louisiana Supreme Court in 1967 upheld two such convictions. In 1966, Mary Young and Dawn DeBlanc were arrested and charged with “having committed a crime against nature” under Louisiana law during the course of a prostitution sting. A police officer testified in court that he had spoken with DeBlanc over the phone about arranging to meet her and Young at a motel. As they settled on a price for services rendered, DeBlanc said that sometimes they “gave a show” for an additional charge. The evidence at trial for the crime against nature charge was slim: A photo of the girls naked in the motel room when they were arrested and certain comic books in one of the girls’ purses which was labelled obscene. Judge Frank Shea refused to throw out the flimsy evidence, and in stead instructed the jury that the law defining “crimes against nature” included any joining or connection of a genital organ of one person with the mouth of another. He also refused to instruct the jury on laws on entrapment.

Young and DeBlanc were convicted and sentenced to thirty months in the Orleans Parish prison. They appealed the case to the Louisiana Supreme Court on the grounds that the charge was vague. In 1967, the court ruled:

The statute, of course, requires proof of an “unnatural carnal copulation.” As pointed out by this court … this phrase simply means “any and all carnal copulation or sexual joining and coition that is devious and abnormal because it is contrary to the natural traits and/or instincts intended by nature, and therefore does not conform to the order ordained by nature. … Oral copulation by and between two women constituted “unnatural carnal copulation” within statute proscribing such conduct.

[From Jonathan Katz’s Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the USA (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1976): pp 127-128.