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.
Of course, you may lack common sense and not understand this.
So it's the public health angle, now. Better get CJ on the right playbook page. He's still arguing the "compassionate incarceration" angle.
But you are perhaps too stupid to have noticed that.
I don't have one, any more than I have a law of gravity. It simply exists.
The objective reality here is that we live under the governance of a secular government, and a system created by some people who took great pains to, in spite of their strong beliefs, impose obstacles on religious zealots from duplicating the work of tbe Taliban in this country.
The first person to bring up the Taliban looses on the lack of more cogent argument. To the point, we live in a society that separates church and state, but not morality and state. Even Ben Franklin, no paragon of virtue, knew that our society could not survive if people could not be moral. The question at hand is not whether there is or should be a national morality, the question is whether and how it should apply to buggery.
Your continued need to persecute those whose behavior you do not agree with, or find personally offensive, will only strenghten their arguments in the eyes of the law; sodomites and queers have no greater ally than yourself, Kevin and the rest.
Once again I will point out who is making laws and who is doing persecuting. Hint: It ain't the Boy Scouts of America.
You wish laws enacted that you yourself admit to being unenforceable, and whose sole purpose is impossing your moral judgement on their behavior.
I haven't admitted anything about their enforcement. I said the method of enforcement would wait until the evidence became public. Same for truancy in school. But I don't want to impose my moral judgement. I want to impose moral reality. The nice thing about living in the U.S. is that we can discuss morality without calling each other names like Taliban or Nazi (until we run out of arguments, that is). If I can persuade enough people to maintain (not change but maintain) the illegality of buggery then it is permitted that I do so. If I can't, then I can't.
Congratulations...queers applaud you efforts, and are extremely grateful for the assistance you continue to provide them in the advancement of their agenda.
Interesting paragraph.
Shalom.
You have no reason to believe Kevin lied to you other than your own inability to imagine a life where sex isn't central.
Shalom.
Every single one of those things, except heterosexual, exist as one of many valid kinds of people. There are men who are not fathers, not husbands, not sales executives, not Republicans, not conservatives, etc.
You are sexual because you are not asexual (like fungus). Since you are sexual you are by definition heterosexual since autosexual and homosexual can't be sexual - they can't reproduce. The only reason you would have ever put heterosexual into that list is because the deviant homosexuals have decided to classify themselves based on their erotic preferences. If someone had challenged your sexual identity before the gay agenda started making so much noise, you probably would have said something like "I'm just as interested in girls as any other red blooded Cuban (or American depending on where you got "diversified") man would be.
Shalom.
No, that was a different story. Lot didn't have to cut up his daughters because the Angels protected him and his family. Lot and his family (sans wife) escaped to a cave nearby. The daughters then became concerned that they would die virgins, so they got their father drunk and had sex with him (each on a different night).
Shalom.
They exist, their sexuality is questioned not by them, but by us. We want to simply make believe that they do not exist, in spite of the fact that homosexuality is as old as man, we think that some kind of "see no evil" attitude will make some kind of a difference.
Their sins are punishable by G*d, not by man playing the role of G*d, or the government assuming G*d's role.
My beliefs tell me that, unlike the vast majority of the people on this thread, I am to hate the sin, but love the sinner.
I don't call them "queers" (unless I am making a point), I call them sinners like many of us are sinners, I don't call them deviants, I call the behavior deviant while recognizing that in my own imperfection as a human, I engage in what may be deviant behavior, if one is to consider all sodomy deviant behavior, and I most certainly completely reject the idea that "God hates fags"...they are sinners, and He sacrificed His only begotten Son to provide sinners with a vehicle to salvation.
He wouldn't have done that unless He loved us all equally.
Are you insinuating that Texas homosexuals created a law making homosexual intercourse illegal?
The laws are created by legislatures, and judge by the Court system.
Absolutely - although their story is not listed as an example to follow but a demonstration of how far they had fallen because of the culture Lot had raised them in. In other words, the story of Lot's incest is included in the Bible to warn G-d's people of the consequences of the "consenting adults" theory.
What two consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home is immaterial to society. What they do when they discover they make up a special interest group is very material and must be stopped.
Shalom.
I guess you must have missed the names I was called starting about 100 posts before Taliban or Nazi...it must be that selective "reality" of yours manifesting itself again.
So have murderers but we don't coddle them, create murderer rights movements, or otherwise enable their destructive behavior.
Look, Free Republic is not a place to discuss how to counsel people you know. It's a place to discuss public policy. The gays and lesbians I know are aware that I believe their lifestyle is problematic, but we get along fine as long as we agree not to bring the subject up. But the bigger issue is that everywhere else they turn they are being told they are not deviant, not queer, not in need of help. For the sake of compassion that must change.
Once they understand they are sinners, then the utmost compassion should be used to help them deal with their sin.
Your approach will make homoerotic behavior no more stigmatized than divorce or fornication - and look where that has gotten us.
Shalom.
I belive in G-d and I believe He created sex in a way that we could enjoy it, but I don't believe He created it for our enjoyment. I also believe He created food in a way that we could enjoy it but not for our enjoyment. You know what happens when people forget to keep food in its proper place. They become fat with all its inherent health and social problems. (I suppose you are aware of the movement to de-stigmatize getting fat.)
Sex as a means of creating (and maintaining) the unique spiritual union G-d intended between a man and a woman for a lifetime is a good thing. Sex as a means of anything else (even within marriage) is a bad thing. Just like eating as a means of keeping yourself alive and healthy is a good thing, eating for any other reason (even in your own kitchen) is a bad thing.
Shalom.
No, I know about the Texas law and precisely how long it has been on the books.
Now that you've brought up your anecdotal evidence, would you care to do a search for the laws that have been introduced in the past 50 years on the subject of homosexual behavior and break down their purpose and who has introduced them?
I'm willing to bet that, if you took the time, you would find that the homosexual rights crowd has been submitting most of them and their purpose is to persecute those who don't wholeheartedly accept the homosexual agenda. And that's if you include DOMA laws (which I would).
Shalom.
There are times when I start a thread that has over 200 posts that I skip to the end and start from there. It keeps me from writing answers that have been written several times already.
In our conversation, you started the name calling.
Shalom.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.