Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stay a lower court's decision striking down the state's anti-sodomy law while the case is on appeal.
Chief Justice John Roberts has asked the other side for a response by next Monday.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared Virginia's law against oral and anal sex unconstitutional in March. Cuccinelli appealed the panel's 2-1 ruling to the Supreme Court in June.
Virginia's anti-sodomy law was the basis for a 47-year-old man's conviction of criminal solicitation for allegedly demanding oral sex from a 17-year-old girl. In the appeal, Cuccinelli claims a 2003 Supreme Court decision striking down a Texas anti-sodomy law applied only to sex acts between consenting adults, not those between an adult and a minor.
