Consenting Adult Sex Bill

The Consenting Adult Sex Bill (Assembly Bill 489) is a consenting adult law, passed in California in 1975 and effective in January 1976, that repealed the sodomy law in California so that it applied only in criminal situations and made gay sex legal for the first time.George Moscone, an early proponent of gay rights, in conjunction with his friend and ally in the Assembly, Willie Brown, managed to get the bill passed, 21-20, repealing the existing Californian laws against sodomy. The amendment was signed into law by California Governor Jerry Brown. The Assembly had a much easier time passing the bill, with final vote on AB 489 being 45-26. Gov. Brown signed the bill on May 12, 1975.

Assemblyman Brown introduced the bill in 1970, resulting in a five-year fight in the legislature.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, sodomy was considered a “crime against nature” due to the fact that engaging in this form of intercourse disallows any possibility for procreation. Sodomy is defined as being "sexual contact that takes place between the penis of one person and the anus of another person." These laws were extended by state legislation to include oral sex performed on a man or a woman. Observations were then made on the people who committed the crime and the majority of offenders did such acts with minors. Despite improvements on laws protecting minors in cases of molestation, sodomy was still the primary charge.

The motive behind framing a structure against homosexual or non-traditional sexual behavior was directed by the human emotion of disgust. People elicit this reaction when familiar occurrences are not met and labels are unknown. The common view of such sexual acts was that it was done only for pleasure and will lead to a boundless, degenerate society that feeds on desire. This Puritan view lasted all the way up to modern day times in American society.

The bill decriminalized sex that is non-proceational and protected minors who could not legally consent. The 1975 California bill states, "This bill removes criminal sanctions from adulterous cohabitation; and it removes specific criminal sanctions from sodomy and oral copulation except: (1) when the sodomy or oral copulation is committed with a minor or by force, violence, duress, menace or threat of great bodily harm." The focus was then set by Brown and Moscone to be on the consent of the adult for the sexual act and not the act itself.

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