Homosexual Men
Homosexual acts between men were an easy target for the morally-based sodomy laws. Within the reportings found in Minnesota, there are none that explicitly label the men involved as being gay. However, there are a few stories that seem to imply such.
These stories always list two men, who may or may not be named, but don't identify either man as the assailant or victim. This was typical, as legislation would often label both participants as guilty regardless of consent. The description is not usually that detailed and typically concludes with a court ruling or fine the men have to pay.
While the cases covered in the Minnesota newspapers from 1880-1900 don't offer many details, it would be court cases relating to homosexuality that would lead to the eventual decriminalization of sodomy laws. The first case, Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), featured a man being arrested in his bedroom for sleeping with another man. The decision ruled against him stating that, “To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.”
A later case, Lawrence v. Texas (2003), was very similar in that it was another man arrested in his bedroom for sleeping with his male partner. This time, the courts ruled in favor of the defendant, resulting in an overturn of Bowers v. Hardwick. The decision came down to the case being a matter of privacy and consensual sexual acts, stating that moral disapproval was an insufficient basis for unequal treatment. This would culminate in the end of moral laws, although laws pertaining to harmful acts, children, and public acts remained.