Sexual practices of homosexuals were prohibited and punished in all states of the USA with fines and, often, with jail. Illinois was the first state that, in the context of a recast of the Criminal Code, revoked the sodomy law in 1962. After the emergence of the gay movement, several other states followed in the 1970s: Connecticut (1971), Colorado, Oregon ( 1972), Delaware, Hawaii (1973), Massachusetts, Ohio (1974), New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota (1975), California, Maine, Washington, West Virginia (1976), Indiana, South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming (1977), Iowa, Nebraska (1978) and New Jersey (1979). It was almost always the legislature that revoked the laws; Only in Massachusetts was the change made by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States.
