SEX CRIMES GET NEW NAMES

PFMLIT General, LEGISLATION, STATE BY STATE NEW YORK

The terms sodomy and deviate sexual assault will be stricken from New York's law books under legislation approved by lawmakers in the waning hours of the Legislature's just completed session.  The substitution of new terms does not affect criminal penalties for those acts, but advocates said it is important to expunge archaic language that stigmatizes sexual assault victims and gay people.  The term sodomy is replaced with criminal sexual act and deviate sexual intercourse with oral sexual conduct or anal sexual conduct.  

(Albany, New York)