A bill that sought to decriminalize gay
sex in Montana has died in a House committee.
The Montana House Judiciary Committee
voted on Friday against Democratic Senator Tom Facey's bill that
sought to remove language from state code which outlaws sexual
contact or sexual intercourse between two persons of the same sex.
The code defines such sexual acts as deviant.
The Republican-controlled Senate had
previously approved the measure with a 35 to 14 vote.
In the 2004 landmark case Lawrence
v. Texas, the United States Supreme Court declared such laws
unconstitutional, but several states, including Texas, have kept the
laws on their books. The court had previously addressed the same
issue in the 1986 case Bowers v. Hardwick, where it upheld a
legal challenge to Georgia's statute. In that case, the court ruled
that there was no constitutional protection to sexual privacy.
In July of 2009, a
male gay couple in El Paso, Texas was threatened with arrest over a
pubic kiss. Officers responding to the couple's complaint of
discrimination told them that their public display of affection was
illegal.