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Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in the U.S. commonwealth of Kentucky face some legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Same-sex sexual activity is legal in Kentucky. Same-sex couples and families headed by same-sex couples are not eligible for all of the protections available to opposite-sex married couples. On February 12, 2014, a federal judge ruled that the state must recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions, a ruling that is on hold pending review by the Sixth Circuit. Like a number of Southern states in the U.S., Kentucky has generally been viewed as socially conservative, with recent polls indicating that only 35 percent of polled Kentuckians support same-sex marriage, although support has increased in recent years.〔Public Policy Polling: ("Paul, McConnell, Tea Party disliked in KY," August 31, 2011 ), accessed September 1, 2011〕 Several cities in the state prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, and accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The Louisville-based Fairness Campaign, founded in 1991, is the state's oldest and largest LGBT advocacy organization in operation. In 2008, a Fairness Coalition was formed to collectively advance LGBT anti-discrimination protections in the commonwealth; its members are the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, Fairness Campaign, Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, and Lexington Fairness. ==Laws against homosexuality== In 1992 the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled the section of Kentucky's sodomy statute criminalizing consensual sodomy violated the Kentucky state constitution. In overturning the consensual sodomy statute (KRS 510.100) in the ''Kentucky v. Wasson'' case, the Kentucky Supreme Court decriminalized consensual sodomy. The statute remains on the books but remains unenforceable. In ''Lawrence v. Texas'', the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning the remaining state sodomy laws, the U.S. Supreme Court further affirmed that such statutes violate the U.S. Constitution. The former Kentucky statute criminalized consensual sexual relations between people of the same sex, even if conducted in private. Specifically, the law criminalized genital-oral (oral sex), genital-anal (anal sex), and anal-oral (rimming) sex – but only between partners of the same sex. Such sexual activities between mixed-sex (male-female) couples were legal. Such conduct was a misdemeanor punishable by up to 12 months in jail and a fine of up to $500. Solicitation of same was also a misdemeanor, punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a fine of up to $250. Historically, Kentucky's sodomy statutes had changed over time. The 1860 sodomy statute criminalized anal penetration by a penis and applied to both male-female couples and male-male couples. Because the law focused exclusively on penile-anal penetration, consensual sex between women was technically legal in Kentucky until 1974. In fact, in 1909 the Kentucky Supreme Court issued a ruling in Commonwealth v. Poindexter involving two African-American men arrested for consensual oral sex. In this decision the court upheld that the then current sodomy law did not criminalize oral sex but only anal sex. In 1974 Kentucky revised its statutes as part of a penal code reform advocated by the American Law Institute. While the American Law Institute urged states to decriminalize consensual sodomy and other victimless crimes, the Kentucky legislature chose to decriminalize anal sex involving male-female couples but to broaden the new statute to criminalize anal-genital, oral-genital, and oral-anal sexual contact involving same-sex couples (both male-male and female-female couples). Thus, the 1974 revised statute decriminalized consensual anal sex for mixed-sex couples but expanded criminalization of sexual acts to include both male and female same-sex couples. Kentucky also reduced consensual sodomy from a felony to a misdemeanor in 1974.〔William N. Eskridge, ''Dishonorable Passions: Sodomy Laws in America, 1861–2003'' (NY: Penguin Group, 2008), 201n, (available online ), accessed April 10, 2010〕 It was this final remaining consensual sodomy statute, which criminalized only same-sex behavior, which was ruled unconstitutional by the Kentucky Supreme Court in ''Kentucky v. Wasson'' in 1992.〔(''Commonwealth v. Wasson'' ), accessed April 13, 2011〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「LGBT rights in Kentucky」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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