Posted on 05/11/2003 7:04:33 AM PDT by RJCogburn
IN AN April 30 essay titled "The Libertarian Question," my fellow National Review Online contributing editor Stanley Kurtz argues that laws against sodomy, adultery and incest should remain on the books largely to protect the institution of heterosexual marriage.
By stigmatizing sexual relations outside that institution, Kurtz believes "the taboo on non-marital and non-reproductive sexuality helps to cement marital unions, and helps prevent acts of adultery that would tear those unions apart."
Kurtz also states that keeping adult incest illegal will reduce the odds of sex between adults and their minor relatives. Anti-pedophilia laws, virtually everyone agrees, should be energetically enforced, whether or not the child molesters and their victims are family members.
But Kurtz overlooks the fact that anti-sodomy laws can throw adults in jail for having consensual sex. Approval or disapproval of homosexual, adulterous or incestuous behavior among those over 18 is not the issue. Americans should remain free to applaud such acts or, conversely, denounce them as mortal sins. The public policy question at hand is whether American adults should or should not be handcuffed and thrown behind bars for copulating with people of the same sex, beyond their own marriages or within their bloodlines.
If this sounds like hyperbole, consider the case of Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, currently before the Supreme Court.
On Sept. 17, 1998, Harris County sheriffs deputies responded to a phony complaint from Roger Nance, a disgruntled neighbor of John Geddes Lawrence, then 55. They entered an unlocked door to Lawrence's eighth-floor Houston apartment looking for an armed gunman. While no such intruder existed, they did discover Lawrence having sex with another man named Tyron Garner, then 31.
"The police dragged them from Mr. Lawrence's home in their underwear," says Brian Chase, a staff attorney with the Dallas office of the Lambda Legal Defense Fund (www.lambdalegal.org) which argued on the gentlemen's behalf before the Supreme Court. "They were put in jail for 24 hours. As a result of their conviction, they would have to register as sex offenders in Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina. If this arrest had taken place in Oklahoma, they could have faced 10 years in prison. It's kind of frightening." Lawrence and Garner were fined $200 each plus $141.25 in court costs.
Ironically, Chase adds by phone, "At the time the Texas penal code was revised in 1972, heterosexual sodomy was removed as a criminal offense, as was bestiality."
Even though some conservatives want government to discourage non-procreative sex, those Houston sheriff's deputies could not have apprehended a husband and wife engaged in non-reproductive oral or anal sex (although married, heterosexual couples still can be prosecuted for the same acts in Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia). And were Lawrence caught naked in bed with a Rottweiler, consenting or otherwise, the sheriffs could not have done more than suggest he pick on someone his own species. However, because Lawrence preferred the company of a willing, adult human being of his same sex, both were shuttled to the hoosegow.
"The point is, this could happen to anyone," Chase says. "This was the result of a malicious prank call made by a neighbor who was later arrested and jailed for 15 days for filing a false report."
As for grownups who lure children into acts of homosexuality, adultery and incest, the perpetrators cannot be imprisoned quickly enough. The moment members of the North American Man-Boy Love Association go beyond discussion of pedophilia to actions in pursuit thereof, someone should call 911 and throw into squad cars the men who seek intimate contact with males under 18. Period.
The libertarian question remains before Stanley Kurtz and the Supreme Court. Should laws against adult homosexuality, adultery and incest potentially place taxpaying Americans over 18 behind bars for such behavior? Priests, ministers, rabbis and other moral leaders may decry these activities. But no matter how much people may frown upon these sexual appetites, consenting American adults should not face incarceration for yielding to such temptations.
Here is the libertarian answer to this burning question: Things deemed distasteful should not always be illegal. This response is one that every freedom-loving American should embrace.
I would agree as well. The government should not enforce a religion. But what about enforcing morality?
Shalom.
No, I'm defining what they think by what they say they think.
Isn't the definition of "homosexual" being exclusively sexually attracted to members of the same sex?
Shalom.
Arguing the extreme won't get your point across. And that was exactly my point. We have sex laws now, and no bedroom police. Why would making buggery illegal create bedroom police?
Shalom.
The right to call their unions "marriage." The right to adopt. The right to teach kids about their perverse practices. The right to impose fines or prison time on anyone who disagrees with them.
Shalom.
Well, actually I'm more libertarian than Left or Right...
Christians would recognize it as being very close to the Golden Rule.
Don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you. Don't steal or defraud; don't force or coerce. Seems pretty balanced to me.
That depends on whether the cats in question are feral cats, or domestic cats and thus, someone else's property.
I am not an adolescent, however, I don't have to accept your definition of my concerns over the issue as being purely driven by my "needs" for sexual gratification, nor do I have to accept your generalized standard.
BTW, heterosexuals define who they are by their sexual activities as well.
May I also add that by using words such as queer, etc. you are giving weight to their argument.
I know of no such nationality as "queer", I was under the impression that we were discussong the individual rights of American citizens.
So you would also criminalize divorce.
"Or, don't ask - don't tell."
Oh, I see. You just want to make believe that these things do not exist, and enact unenforceable, worthless laws to satisfy some sort of basic emotional need of yours.
That's funny...that;s what YOU are asking for, isn't it?
You are the one arguing that consensual behavior should be criminalized in accordance to YOUR beliefs.
Shalom.
Be careful in speaking for all Christians.
Incidentally, the gulf between what you posted and the Golden Rule is miles wide.
Shalom.
Only those who are in an arrested adolescent state. "Normal" people are able to relegate sexuality to its proper place in their lives - and it is definately not definitive.
And I call the queer because they are. The attempt to clean up the language about their perversion is one of the ways they attempt to appear normal. They are actually mentally ill (with varying degrees of maladjustment).
Shalom.
Yes, again with the understanding that we still need to define "criminalize."
Shalom.
You are the one arguing that consensual behavior should be criminalized in accordance to YOUR beliefs.
No, I'm arguing that their behavior should be criminalized because of objective reality.
And if you look at the history of the past 200 years in this country, you will find far more laws attempting to regulate the thoughts of heterosexuals than the sex lives of queers.
Shalom.
If you want to take that sort of tack, then we could ask why you want to have the innocence of children assaulted? For that is what happens when the Democrats legalized these perversions.
Laws should in no way contradict or compete with the kind messages which loving parents impart to their children. If the Democratic Libertarians want to have an adult-centric society then they are free to move elsewhere and start their own.
I would not call it adult centric as much as individual centric.
And you know that defining children as adults who wear smaller clothes is an important part of the liberal movement to destroy the family, and our culture along with it.
Shalom.
So, which is it? As was true with Clinton, the answer depends on which trap they're trying to wriggle out of.
Some of the finest people I have ever known have been race trackers while some of the most evil have been church people.
"I think the answer lies in there."
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