Gross indecency

Gross indecency is an offense that existed in parts of the English-speaking world, originally used to criminalize sexual activity between men that fell short of the requirements for a charge of sodomy; the offense was never formally defined in statute, leaving its boundaries to be set by courts through individual case decisions. The term first appeared in Britain's Labouchere Amendment, part of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, which criminalized male sexual acts including those carried out in private, and the offense subsequently spread through the British Empire and was adopted by former colonies including Canada, which added it to its Criminal Code in 1892. Versions of gross indecency law have existed in jurisdictions including Australia, several African nations, Caribbean territories, Papua New Guinea and the American state of Michigan; Canada repealed all of its gross indecency statutes in 1985. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/