The law was made by the British govt in line with the victorian era ethos (remember Alan Turing?). Many of the british laws were carried over when India became independent in 1947.
When this law came up for review in the supreme court this year, it ruled that since the law criminalizes actions, not persons, it is not discriminatory and hence, not unconstitutional. As you can imagine, this was a very controversial judgment. But as things stand now, the supreme court has passed the ball back to the parliament to repeal/amend the law.
I am not sure when exactly the original law was amended in Britain.
Sadly, while the British have since got rid of the prudery, it continues here.
The government in power is keen to have the Supreme court strike it down, to avoid any voting backlash from the conservative population.
While one of the courts did strike it down, the Supreme Court later put the ball back into the Parliament's court, saying that only the Parliament can use its legislative powers to get rid of the law.
Thankfully, there have been very few convictions under the law, but it has been used for harassment of some people.
I dunno if you're from/in the US, but this kind of view is a lot closer to. home than you'd think. Go back ten years and a dozen or two states had similar laws, and needed to be forced by the Supreme Court to invalidate them (go back a bit further and the number jumps).
> I mean seriously, what rational, feeling human being thinks:
Christian, esp the various puritan sub-sects. Oral sex being socially acceptable is relatively new. 40yrs or less. As a kid in 70's I'd get in trouble for saying "suck". My parents considered it an obscene word as bad as "fuck".
This kind of thing exists to this day even in the US:
"Georgia code section 16-6-2 provides a 1 to 20 year mandatory sentence for any adults consenting to "any sexual act involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another". Married couples are not excluded from this law."
-http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_US_states_is_Fellatio_ill...
Judges in any of those state, bound by the Supremacy clause, will have to throw out those cases following Lawrence v Texas. If they won't do it, a federal court will be glad to do it on their behalf.
There's a world view I can't imagine.