Ella Thompson v. J. C. Aldredge, Sheriff: 1939
"Sodomy . . . cannot be accomplished by two women"
by Jonathan Ned Katz. Copyright (c) 2008 by Jonathan Ned Katz. All rights reserved. Reedited by Katz from Gay American History (1976).
On January 12, 1939, the Georgia Supreme Court issued its decision in the proceeding by plaintiff Ella Thompson against Sheriff J. C. Aldredge to review an earlier adverse judgment against her in the Superior Court of Fulton County. The tantalizingly brief report of Thompson's appeal records one of the rare Lesbian related legal cases in American history. Ella Thompson's appeal represents a courageous and unusual act of resistance against an attempt at the legal prosecution of sexual activity between two women.
- Ella Thompson had been convicted in lower court on "an indictment charging her with sodomy, both participants in the act being alleged to be females!' Thompson appealed, her lawyers asking that the indictment be discharged on the grounds that she "is being illegally restrained of her liberty, in that the indictment on which she was convicted was null and void.”
With all the judges concurring, Justice Grice of the Georgia Supreme Court ruled:
This record presents the question whether the crime of sodomy, as defined by our law, can be accomplished between two women. By Code…sodomy is defined as "the carnal knowledge and connection against the order of nature, by man with man, or in the same unnatural manner with woman." Wharton, in his Criminal Law…lays down the rub that "the crime of sodomy proper can not-be accomplished between two women, though the crime of bestiality may be." We have no reason to believe that our law-makers in defining the crime of sodomy intended to give it any different meaning. Indeed the language of the Code above quoted seems to us to deliberately exclude the idea that this particular crime may be accomplished by two women, although it may be committed by two men, or a man and a woman. That the act here alleged to have been committed is just as loathsome when participated in by two women does not justify us in reading into the definition of the crime something which the lawmakers omitted.
- The petitioner's conviction was a nullity and she is entitled to be discharged.
- Judgment reversed.
The legal precedent was established in Georgia that
- The crime of sodomy as defined by statute cannot be accomplished between two women.[1]
References
- ↑ South Eastern Reporter… vol. 200 (Jan.-March 19391, (St. Paul, Minn.: West, 1939), p. 799-800. Legal citations: Thompson v. Aldredge, 200 S. E. 799; 187 Ga. 467. From 1945 to 1954 in New York City, a group called the Veterans Benevolent Association became the first American homosexual membership organization of the post- World War I1 period. It incorporated in 1948. Formed by four honorably discharged veterans, it is said to have functioned primarily as a social club for its seventy-five to 100 regular members, and the as many as four or five hundred guests who sometimes attended its events. Through its officers and members, homosexual veterans and their friends were aided when in trouble with the law or an employer. Lecturers frequently spoke on some aspect of sex. After several years, conflict developed among members who wanted the group to become more active in social change. Factionalism led to the group's disbanding in 1954 (Edward Sagarin, Structure and Ideology in an Association of Deviants; A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, New York University, 1966; photo reprint, N.Y.: Arno, 1975, p. 64-67). Sagarin's brief history of this pioneering group is "based almost entirely on private conversations and interviews with almost all the ex-leaders and many ex-members" of the Association. The recently discovered "Certificate of Incorporation of Veterans Benevolent Association, Inc." is dated March 8, 1948, and is fled with the State of N.Y., Dept. of State, Albany. The "purposes" for which the group is formed are listed as: "To unite socially and fraternally, all veterans and their friends, of good and moral character, over the age of twenty years. To foster, create, promote, and maintain the spirit of social, fraternal, and benevolent feeling among the members and all those connected by any means and ties. To enhance the mutual welfare of its members. To promote and advance good fellowship, mutuality, and friendship, and to promote the best idealism and interests of its members. To advance the social and economic interests of its members; to provide suitable places for meeting of members and the establishment of facilities for social, fraternal, benevolent, and economic activities and functions." The names of five "Directors" are listed, along with seven witnesses. The association is also discussed in Marvin Cutler (pseud.), ed., Homosexuals Today; A Handbook of Organization and Publications (Los Angeles: ONE, Inc., 1956), p. 89-90. Major published sources on the early history of the American homosexual emancipation movement are Sagarin, Cutler, and Poster Gunnison's "The Homophile Movement in America," in The Same Sex: An Appraisal of Homosexuality, ed. Ralph W. Weltge (Phila.: United Church Press, 1969). Nine issues of a lesbian monthly, Vice Versa, were privately published (typewritten) and distributed in Los Angeles between June 1947, and Feb, 1948, by a woman who called herself Lisa Ben (an anagram for Lesbian). Vice Versa is the earliest-known American publication designed especially for Lesbians. Its 71/2- by 11-inch pages included play, film, and hok reviews, poetry, short stories, editorials, and an annotated bibliography of novels, a11 concerned with Lesbianism. The editor is said to have previously "achieved some note in the science-fiction field" ("Vice Versa," Homosexuals Today; A Handbook of Organizations and Publication, ed. Marvin Cutler pseud.]. [Los Angeles: ONE, Inc., 19561, p. 4, 9031.) Excerpts (mostly poetry) from Vice Versa appear throughout The Ladder and may be found listed in the index to that Lesbian periodical (photo reprint, N.Y.: Arno, 1975). Excerpts from Vice Versa also appear throughout ONE Magazine. The Library of the Homosexual Information Center in Los Angeles has copies of all but issue no. 7 of Vice Versa.
