As a trial and appellate court judge, Webb was actively involved in the controversy over gay rights.
Enslin's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was denied in 1975 at the same time that it upheld Virginia's sodomy law in Doe v. Commonwealth's Attorney.
Judge Webb's opinion held that North Carolina's crime against nature statute includes a consensual fellatio between a man and a woman, that the constitutional right of privacy does not prohibit prosecution for consensual fellatio in private between a man and a woman, and that the statute as applied is not unconstitutionally vague.
We believe that persons of ordinary intelligence would conclude a fellatio between a man and a woman would be classified as a crime against nature and prohibited by GS 14-177.
The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the appeal "for want of a substantial constitutional question" in Poe v. North Carolina, 445 U.S. 947 (1980).