Anti-sodomy laws violate individual liberties

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.

It's always been legal to hurt yourself. ... alcohol and tobacco have been legal since they were discovered. Dangerous sports have a long history and occupations like mining and lumbering carry an inherent risk of injury.

There is nothing inherently immoral about alcohol or tobacco or sports car racing or lumberjacking. No one ever died from smoking one cigarette. The same cannot be said for engaging in one act of homosexual sodomy.

Even so, something is not immoral because it is dangerous. Something is immoral because God says it is immoral. Hence if lumberjacking always resulted in death it would be immoral, too, since suicide is immoral.

Well, King James version of Genesis 19:6-8 goes like so:
"6: And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him,
7: And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.
8: Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof."

Yeah, it wasn't for sex. He undoubtedly meant, "Take them out for dinner and a movie, and make sure they're back home by midnight."

"God's law doesn't matter to these people, just the dependant insurance plan and survivor benefits."

This just in: The United States Constitution is the law of the land, not the Christian Bible, nor any deity's holy writ.

Film at 11.

Chidren (sic) are protected by consent laws, and their parents are responsible for protecting them. We are discussing the rights of consensual adults here.

The "for the children" argument is usually a tool of the left CJ.

The fact that Democrats (who passed all the so-called 'consenting adults' legislation you and the other moral-liberals are approving of) shill for children is no excuse for ignoring the rights of children and for shirking society's huge responsibility in their well-being, when setting public policy.

In a free republic, the well-being of children is everyone's responsibility. Otherwise, do you smirk and wash your hands and turn away when you see a child being slapped, abused, or neglected in Little Havana, claiming it's all the responsibility of the parents?

Chidren are protected by consent laws, and their parents are responsible for protecting them. We are discussing the rights of consensual adults here.

In other words, children have no right to their own innocence, but adults have a right to pollute the culture with their perversions. If children are walking outside and are exposed to it, then it's all the fault of the parents, apparently. Your moral-liberal argument tries to excuse and laud the adult-centric sewer of the Democratic/Socialist/Communist/Greens/Libertarian Party.

Your point is?

v. 14 says And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said "up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will deatroy this city." But he semmed as one that mocked unto his sons in law.

However, in verse 8 that you quote Lot claims two daughter which have not known man;

So the best you can do is focus on Lot offering his daughters to a bunch of perverts who were after "TWO ANGELS" ( bit of information to you there, the angels were men) sent to rescue Lot and family before the place was destroyed.

There is another gay story where a man did in fact send out women to a bunch of perverts when they demanded the "men" of the house, I believe he cut up her savaged body in twelve pieces and sent to the tribes telling them to clean up their hell holes.

Just like the perverts of modern day must pervert things to satisfy the lusts of their flesh.
Bit twisted wouldn't you say missing the whole point.

The purpose of human life is to manifest the glory of God. To do this, we must be free. Therefore, the essential purpose of government is to maximize freedom and to protect the individuals' rights to pursue their own good in their own way.

As it says in the DOI: " ... inalienable rights, among which are an early death, slavery to vice, and the pursuit of unneeded suffering."

Using this political fantasy that laws somehow rob people of their free will, here is your argument brought to its logical conclusion: "Laws against bank-robbery rob would-be bank robbers of their free will choice of whether to rob or not. They are just zombies without any self-control or personal responsibility in the matter."

No state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

-- Amendment XIV, Constitution of the United States of America

Selective law is no law at all.

Oh, and by the way, YIKES! Can I go eat now? Cowering can really work up an appetite.

There is no discrimination in laws which proscribe homosexual behaviors.

If the same sex act occurs between a man and a woman that occurs between two men or two women, yet the former is legal while the latter is not, that violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Furthermore, such selective application of the statute forfeits the "public health" defense.

All you're left with is morality, which is God's realm, not Caesar's.

Oops. Forgot to quote the original article that I was replying to, namely post number 8, which said:

"You need to spend more time reading the WORD.

Two separate incidents and no Lot did not offer his daughters to visitors.

Obviously you don't really care what our Heavenly Father says or you would not twist what was Written!"

So, I decided to quote the WORD right back at that person, showing that, indeed, Lot _did_ offer his daughters to visitors.

P.S. I'm an atheist, so no, I don't automatically give more importance to the opinions of the majority's favored supernatural entity as opposed to those of any other supernatural entity.

I don't agree.

Everyone is equally free to engage in sex with a member of the opposite sex. Likewise, everyone is equally prohibited from engaging in sex with a member of the same sex.

It doesn't say only black people, or only men.. It's everyone, period. The law is universal. (as least the Texas law is worded in this fashion, your mileage may vary elsewhere.. )

Would you consider laws allowing bestiality with sheep but not with goats to be a 14th amendment violation?

We are discussing the rights of consensual adults here.

Outside a boxing ring (and only in a few states) it is illegal for two adults to beat each other with fists and sticks. That's all sodomy is: a mutual consensual physical beating resulting in ripped and torn rectal walls, exchange of AIDS-infected blood, etc.

The state should be allowed to outlaw it.

And distinguishing between "adult" and "child" is as easy of defining the age of consent down as far as a pedophilic libertarian believes he can get away with.

All you're left with is morality, which is God's realm, not Caesar's.

PS: Further, the Texas case is very much akin to Roe in the sense that what's at stake is the SCOTUS effectively legalizing homosexual acts across the board, with no regard for local or State laws prohibiting same.

This could also be seen as "Caesar" imposing his will on the states.. Which is a violation of the Tenth.

Further still, if you can make a 14th amendment argument for legalizing homosexual sex at the federal level, you are one argument away from forcing homosexual marriage on the states also.

"Laws against bank-robbery rob would-be bank robbers of their free will choice of whether to rob or not. They are just zombies without any self-control or personal responsibility in the matter."

Laws against bank robbery protect the right of banks to keep money without having someone steal it. Ownership of stuff is a recognized human right.

Whose rights, and what rights, are protected by the anti-sodomy laws?

This could also be seen as "Caesar" imposing his will on the states.. Which is a violation of the Tenth.

IMHO, the Texas case should have been good for a laches defense: the law is so sparsely enforced that the defendants had no reason to believe that there existed any state interest in prosecuting their behavior. It would perhaps be informative to see what records exist of the debates surrounding the law; I suspect the legislators only expected it to be enforced in particularly egregious situations (e.g. sodomy in public restrooms, on public park benches, etc.)

That being said, I don't know what arguments were raised in Texas (in particular whether a laches defense was among them), but see no constitutional basis for the Supreme Court to overturn this verdict much as I may beieve that, with proper defense, the people should probably have been acquitted.

Whose rights, and what rights, are protected by the anti-sodomy laws?

They protect the inalienable rights of would-be perverts to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They protect the right of children to their own innocence. They protect the right of society to its own self-preservation.

I agree. Frankly, I see no reason for federal involvement at all.

Many states have repealed these laws on their own, without help, prodding or mandates handed down from on high.

While I would personally oppose repealing this law, I have no problems with the mechanics behind doing so. I have great respect for the self determination of citizens at the State and local level, as this is the fulfillment of our Tenth Amendment.

But a mandate from SCOTUS would REALLY muck things up. IMO, regardless of where a person falls on the issue of homosexual sodomy, involvement by SCOTUS is a decidedly bad thing.

They protect the inalienable rights of would-be perverts to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

If people wish to, by their own stupidity, act in such a way as to shorten their lives, society does not have a duty to protect them.

They protect the right of children to their own innocence.

I have no objection to laws regarding pederasty.

They protect the right of society to its own self-preservation.

"Society" has no rights. Only individuals.

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