011374 nyt Florida's Rape Law Held No Protection for Males

TALLAHASSEE., Jan. 12 (UPI)The Florida Supreme Court ruled this week that the~ rape law does not protect men from homosexual assaults, but said that two Raiford prison inmates convicted of forcing another inmate to submit to sexual relations at knifepoint can be tried on other charges.

The two convicts, Linton Edward Wilson and Bernard Brinson, were first convicted of lewd and lascivious conduct. When that law, forbidding "the abominable and detestable
crime against nature." was declared unconstitutionally vague, they were charged again under the rape statute. 

In the interim, the First State  District Court of Appeal ruled unconstitutional those parts of the rape law that say the victim must be female. The appellate court struck the "words "female," "her" and "she" from the law.

In a 4 to I decision written by Justice David L. McCain, the Supreme Court ruled that the lower court had been wrong! in saying that men as well as! women could be rape victims.