Posted on 04/21/2003 4:32:34 PM PDT by Polycarp
You're going to get your wish fairly soon. Although it will be social/economic-libertarian vs. traditionalist-centrist.
Being flakey is in the eye of the beholder. :)
And there are men out there that get off on two women going at it, and think that it's perfectly okay.
Or they might start the first truly viable third party.
A fully-consenting adult is an adult who is legally capable of giving consent (e.g. not adjudicated incompetant, etc.), and who does so absent any form of unlawful coersion.
As for the state defining or defending the family, I prefer to have the state stay out of that business as much as possible. Society's institutions (families, churches, the Boy Scouts of America, etc.) don't need much help from government to protect themselves; the biggest threat to them is that a government which protects them must thereby gain power over them, and a government which has power over them can use that power to destroy them.
Prostitution is legal in Nevada, and probably causes no more problems there than in places where it is not [there are many problems which are reduced by its being legal and regulated; as to what extent they're counter-balanced by others, I don't know but it's probably a wash].
States should have no less authority to restrict bestiality as any other forms of animal torture.
As for polygamy, I see nothing that would compel the state to recognize such an arrangement, but I see no legal basis for state action against a married man who also has a mistress with the knowledge and consent of his wife [though if such consent evaporates the man could be in deep trouble]. Note that charges of bigamy almost always involve the use of fraud upon some or all participants, and such fraud should be actionable in and of itself.
As for the issue of government recognizing marriage, there is a strong tradition of it doing so, and having the government officially recognize it does help alleviate some of the problems that could arise if one person claims to be married to another but that other person disagrees.
Besides--nearly all of the reasons the government would care if people are married are a stem from the government getting involved with things that it really shouldn't.
Adultery is indeed a violation of the marriage contract; as with any other contract violation, it is up to the aggrieved party to seek redress.
As for prostitution, it has always, and will always, exist. That doesn't mean I think it's "okay". The question should not be what can be done to stop prostitution--hasn't been done in thousands of years and can't be done in another thousand--but rather to minimize the harm caused. In places where prostitution is illegal, prostitutes are frequent victims of all sorts of crimes; in rural Nevada, however, anyone who tries to commit a crime against a prostitute will have to answer to the state if she presses charges (as she likely would).
You avoided my questions regarding the age of consent. What age is that?
Eighteen for everything else, is it not?
I don't know what the age minimum is in Nevada; I'd guess 21, but it might be 18.
And in 2,000 years of civilization, prostitution has hardly gone away. To be sure, states have the authority to place restrictions on it (under the general constitutional powers to regulate all forms of business) and states could reasonably use such powers to make it for all practical purposes illegal; doing so, however, hardly makes it go away.
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