Sodomy laws, or state statutes which criminalized sexual contact between people of the same sex were some of the most pernicious aspects of anti-LGBT discriminatory practices that negatively impacted the civil rights of LGBT Americans.
The 2003 Supreme Court decision Lawrence v Texas basically ended the era of legal gay apartheid but there are 18 states which, today, 8 years later, still have sodomy laws on their books.
MadProfessah noted that Mother Jones discussed this curiosity last April and now Equality Matters and other LGBT media outlets are starting to take notice.