Law makers in Virginia are rescinding Virginia Code 18.2-344 which states “Any person, not being married, who voluntarily shall have sexual intercourse with any other person, shall be guilty of fornication, punishable as a Class 4 misdemeanor”.
Here is more on the story from WTVR in Richmond Virginia:
“Del. Mark Levine (D – Alexandria) introduced House Bill 245 [lis.virginia.gov] to repeal what he called a Victorian-era law. The Virginia Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional in 2005…
The bill received bipartisan support on the floor. The seven votes against it [lis.virginia.gov] came from Republican lawmakers. One Democrat abstained.
“Now that the Democrats are in power, I’m thrilled to get it off the books,” Levine said.
Levine pointed out that this is a crime a majority of Virginians have probably committed at some point in their life.
“It’s a stupid law. It’s crazy,” Levine said.
This is Levine’s second attempt to repeal the law, and the third by Democrats since 2014.
“I had that fornication bill before, it couldn’t get out of committee. The world has changed,” Del. Mark Sickles (D-Fairfax) said Thursday from the House floor. Sickles introduced the bill [richmondsunlight.com] that failed in 2014.”
We must remember that civil fornication laws, like laws against murder and theft are simply reflections of God’s moral law as found in the Bible. God established civil government, not to add to his moral law or take away from his moral law, but to enforce his moral law.
“For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.”
Romans 13:4-6 (KJV)
Yes, the world has changed, but the Bible tells us in Psalm 33:11 “The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations”. And God’s counsel regarding fornication is found in Hebrews 13:4 where it states “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge”.
We can argue about what the civil penalties should be for fornication. But to remove all condemnation of it from our laws and to call such laws “stupid” and “crazy” is to call the law of God stupid and crazy. And if I were a law maker, that is not something I would ever want to say. It is sad that only seven Virginia Republican law makers agreed that we should not call God’s laws stupid and crazy.
Biblical Gender Roles 
They should worry more about gun laws. All gun laws are illegal unconstitutional and unlawful. You can’t legislate away any Right. That is why it is a Right.
Read Title 18 USC 241, Title 18 USC 242, and Title 42 USC 1983
In thinking about the possible reasons God may have had for forbidding fornication, the following suggest themselves to me:
1) Fornication fails to comprehend that sexual intercourse is reserved for marriage because it represents the highest level of physical intimacy and is closely representative of intimacy with God on a spiritually connecting level.
2) Faithfulness to one’s marriage partner is required to symbolize our faithfulness to God and His to us.
3) The devaluing of the uniquely special relationship between a married man and woman.
4) The potential of creating intense jealousy and pain when couples fornicate.
5) The potential for unwanted pregnancies and all of the repercussions in the life of an unwanted child.
6) The increased likelihood of contracting and spreading sexually transmitted diseases.
7) The testimony of fornicators is directly or indirectly that sex is about entertainment more than about personal bonding intimacy, and when this is the case it diminishes the meaning of the sexual relationship in marriage.
For these and other reasons it has always seemed reasonable of God to ask us to resist the temptation that fornication is. Whereas, when the Church and its teachers and theologians have taught that the enjoyment of erotic imagery is equivalent to fornication, they have indirectly been responsible for encouraging actual fornication.
Paul, in 1Corinthians15:56 tells us “The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.” When Christians call things “sinful” that the Bible does not call sinful they fail to recognize that false definitions of sin actually serve to discourage the heart into giving up on holiness and give in to all manner of sexual sin. When erotic media is declared sinful for all believers it often leads weak believers to give in to fornication. God made all of us intensely sexual of nature, and when we expand His boundaries to include things He never called sinful it can easily lead to sexual frustration and giving in acts of sexual sin.
Our country is entering into an advanced season in its cultural expression of sexuality of giving in to all forms of sexual expression because, in some measure, the Church has driven them to their false conclusions based on the Church’s failure to accurately define what is real sexual sin.
If the Church doesn’t step back and take a fresh look at sexual sin, as Biblical Gender Roles has done, it will watch the entire culture crumble morally out of reaction to the overly restrictive legalism of the Church.
God has blessed humanity with sexual appetites that are allowed to be expressed in various ways that help control its excesses, but when too many things are defined as sexual sin the backlash is dangerous. Better that we accurately define true sexual sin and encourage sexual expressions permitted by God.
What were the original penalties when this law was written?
I can’t find the original punishments for it – I have seen for other states there was some minimal jail time for it, but as of the 1950s it was a $250 fine.
The world has changed.
God has not changed. The scope of evil that widespread fornication has brought to modern civilization can not be overstated. But the solution is not simply laws forbidding fornication, but biblical laws keeping sex within the bounds of marriage … and lots of it,
Fewer men would fornicate if they knew they had to marry that good-time girl or at least pay the bride-price for the pleasure. Fewer still after a few men who could not pay the bride price became slaves of the girl’s father to work off the debt. God is really really smart and His law is the law of liberty and a fount of wisdom. It’s a shame that evangelicals have embraced antinomianism for a cheap grace and friendship with the world,