Adams draws fire after saying sodomy among major crimes tracked by NYPD

Originally published at: https://login.politicopro.com

By Joe Anuta

Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams said on Sunday that sodomy was among the seven major crimes tracked by the NYPD, a comment that ruffled the feathers of a prominent LGBTQ activist and is at odds with current practice.

Adams made the comment while discussing the need to modify bail reform laws to allow judges to hold people who commit any of the seven most serious crimes tracked by the police department.

“There is something called seven major crime categories in this city: rape, robbery, burglary, felonious assault, sodomy,” he said during an interview on ABC. “Those individuals should be incarcerated and given bail and we should make sure we are serious about those seven major crimes.” 

According to the NYPD, the seven major crime categories are: murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and theft of an automobile. Sodomy is not among them.

The comment did not go over well with a representative of the LGBTQ community, who noted that laws banning sodomy had historically been used to criminalize members of the gay community.

“I have [Adams'] cell. The next time I’m going to commit sodomy — which I hope is soon — I will call so he can arrange a citizen’s arrest,” said Allen Roskoff, president of the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club.

Adams’ team said that the Brooklyn borough president was referring to a section of the penal code called first-degree sodomy, a rape that would be counted as a major crime under the NYPD’s CompStat system.

“In absolutely no way was I referring to consensual homosexual or heterosexual relationships,” Adams said in a statement. “Our laws have been abused in the past to demonize and punish gay men and women, and I have always been an advocate for ending such oppression wherever it may be in our laws and or in our policies.”

In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that private sexual conduct is protected by the Constitution, invalidating a number of state sodomy laws that sought to regulate consensual sex between adults.

“It was our love that was considered sodomy,” Roskoff said.