What is the legal status of homosexuality in the United States?
Because of a recent decision by the Supreme Court, the law can no longer punish private consensual homosexual behavior involving adults. This is a significant change in United States history. For most of U.S. history, homosexual behavior has been illegal. Most states adopted laws that made ‘sodomy’ criminal, alongside various other sexual practices. These laws focused on behavior, and punishments have sometimes been severe. Homosexual orientation or desires have never been illegal by themselves. Homosexual orientation or desires have had legal consequences. For example, in the past, the United States has excluded people from immigration and naturalization on the basis of homosexual orientation. Even so, enforcement in those areas has been uneven, as it has been in states with laws against men having sex with men and women having sex with women. In general, the application of laws against homosexuality has been almost random. Even when most jurisdictions had laws against homosexuality,
