This careless use of words is not merely negligent journalism; it belies a deeper - worrying - attitude that what is "deviant", "perverse", or "abnormal" is wrong. Evil. Criminal. This blurring between the moral and the legal is not uncommon; as this post from one of our own students shows, ignorance is not limited to those who don't know any better.
The Oxford English Dictionary Online defines sodomy as "an unnatural form of sexual intercourse, esp. that of one male with another" - a use commonly (but not exclusively) reduced to referring to anal sex. The term "unnatural" implies both that (a) it does not occur in nature, and therefore by implication (b) it is bad (or monstrous, as suggested by the OED). While the first meaning - not occuring in nature - is easily refuted by evidence, the second is more difficult to address. People's bedroom habits are not generally open to scrutiny (unless you're Paris Hilton, in which case - please not!) and even a Kinsey-type study is unlikely to establish accuracy of prevalence of behaviours that respondents might fear deviate from the norm - whether gay or straight, or any other persuasion.
It's a short walk from "I don't like that" to "that shouldn't be allowed", and the behaviours that might spring from that in terms of tolerance of diversity. That our students are failing to learn these values - after a term on Campus - shows that we are not living our values loudly enough.
And, by not challenging the laziness and ignorance of editors who endorse such headlines, we're condeming countless others to the continued complacence of their prejudice.
PS: Kudos to news24.com for correcting the problematic headlines when challenged.