US state abolishes sex law

Sex outside of marriage had been a crime since 1833

The Supreme Court in the American state of Georgia has abolished a 170-year-old law prohibiting sexual relations outside of marriage.

The ruling follows the conviction of a 16-year-old youth found having sex with his girlfriend in the bedroom of her home.

It was so hilarious that they were going to charge somebody for having sex

Jesse McClure
Convicted youth

The judge, Chief Justice Norman Fletcher, said "the government may not reach into the bedroom of a private residence and criminalise the private, non-commercial, consensual sexual acts of two persons legally capable of consenting to those acts".

The couple were discovered engaging in sexual intercourse by the girl's mother in September 2001.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper, the mother of the unnamed girl reported the incident to her daughter's probation officer, who brought the charges.

Essay topic

The girl's boyfriend, Jesse McClure, said he was astonished at being accused of a crime for having sex.

"I laughed for hours," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

"It was so hilarious that they were going to charge somebody for having sex," he said.

McClure was ordered to pay a fine and write an essay about why he should not have had sex.

He wrote that it was none of the court's business.

"Invading privacy just isn't right," McClure said, adding that the Supreme Court's ruling meant that "it now goes that way for everybody".

Laws relating to fornication remain on the statute books of about 10 US states and the District of Columbia.