By AP/KWMU
Jefferson City, MO. – House Speaker Rod Jetton says he removed a committee chairman because House Republicans no longer trust him.
Scott Lipke was chairman of the Crime Prevention and Public Safety Committee.
Jetton wrote in a letter to the Southeast Missourian newspaper that he replaced Lipke because of his handling of a proposal to repeal state sodomy laws.
Jetton says lawmakers were unaware that a provision to repeal laws forbidding gay sex was put into a popular bill that toughened penalties for sexual predators.
Lipke says Missouri sodomy laws are unenforceable because of a U-S Supreme Court ruling that laws making consensual gay sex illegal are unconstitutional.