[Sunsong]

Right, I have not written posts to you. *You* wrote a post to me - and the only thing I personally want to discuss of the things you have posted is whether or not you, like EV, think that people have no *right* to do wrong. I see that view as similar to how Islamists think - (which if you have been reading my posts - you already know). Though you did not answer clearly - I think you are saying that *no* you don't agree with EV and that you do think people have the *right* to do wrong.

The other issue that I find of interest in your writing is I want to know whether you are advocating for a law against sodmomy.

Just as I don't agree that slavery was a good law - or the denial of voting rights to women - I see laws against sodmony as repressive.

As I have said in several posts - I advocate for the most freedom possible. That would include freedom to engage in acts that some disapprove of - as adultery, fornication, sodomy, divorce etc. I do not want to see such things a rape of children legal - or rape itself legal. I think consenting adults - that catch phrase - should be a guide in sexual activites.

[Wallace T.]

In terms of natural rights, I do not think that there exists a right to do something wrong, as in the examples of an employer unjustly firing a competent employee or a person eating or drinking himself into a dangerous unhealthy physical condition. (In the latter case, I realize that addictions may develop in these areas that restrict the freedom of the will, as well as in the case of narcotics.) However, in terms of government intervention, there exist areas that do not justify coercive intrusion. Rights are not a matter of a government granting them, but are pre-existent in the human condition, or are endowed by their Creator, to use the language of the Declaration of Independence.

Contrary to what you stated, there is no correspondence between the Taliban philosophy regarding homosexual sodomy and that of traditional Anglo-American legal philosophy. The Muslim position is far harsher toward homosexuality than other forms of sexual behavior. The older legal codes in America and other Western nations banned not only homosexuality, but fornication, adultery, bigamy, etc. Muslim political order does not recognize such legal standards and civil rights as are in Anglo-American common law and the Constitution, such as probable cause, habeas corpus, protection against self-incrimination, and trial by jury. The difference is that Western, and particularly American, jurisprudence balances the rights of the individuals with the perceived need for public order and decency. Sharia law does not. The men who established the post-Revolutionary governments at the Federal and state levels established restraints on governmental power, but also continued the common law prohibitions against various forms of sexual deviancy. Even Thomas Jefferson, one of the least Christian and more anti-statist of the Founding Fathers, supported the anti-sodomy laws passed by the post-independence Virginia legislature.

Focusing on homosexual sodomy, as the "pro-gay" posters have, begs the question of whether any sort of restriction on sexual activity is justified on the part of government. Polygamists, pederasts, and prostitutes are currently restricted by law, and would desire the same permission others now have. A greater question lies beyond sexuality, in a vast range of areas: commerce, education, the environment, self-defense, narcotics and alcohol, and so forth. The question is: what, if any, restraint should be placed on individual freedom and what should be the basis for our laws. Since I am not a libertarian but a classical liberal in the Jeffersonian sense, or a Goldwater-Taft conservative, I believe that cases may be made, for the sake of public order, decency, and justice, where local (though not Federal or even state) governments may properly prohibit certain activities, not only in the area of sexuality, but in other areas of human action. These prohibitions must be conducted in light of necessary restraints on police and prosecutorial action, as exemplified in the Bill of Rights, and punishment should never be excessive.