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.
Bingo. You can't demand full faith and credit under the US Constitution for a license issued in one state which implies an illegal act in another. That scenario weakens the argument for "gay marriage", so the gays are attacking the statutory foundation of their legal difficulty.
God's law doesn't matter to these people, just the dependant insurance plan and survivor benefits. If they get this crap through, Divorce Court will eventually be a real circus....
Well, if changing the subject is your idea of a "better" argument, plese, do continue with your delusion.
Read the title of the thread again. The words actually are very common and simple...
It may be a problem for some, but not for me.
I saw this thread as an intellectual free-for-all based on its title.
Muddying the subject of discussion never turns up the light, but it certainly turns up the heat!
There are many laws I have problems with in many areas. But arguing that "individual Liberty" is at risk is a specious sophomoric argument and sophistry pure and simple.
Best regards to your mother on this special day.
Apparently you're the only one who can't differentiate between genetic probabilities and morality engineering. Promoting marriage may or may not be a good SOCIAL idea. Preventing birth defects by limiting incestuous sexual relations has an undeniable BIOLOGICAL benefit.
I believe that this will be thrown out, on the simple grounds of "equal protection." If a specific act is legal between a man and a woman, then (due to the equal protection clause) it should be legal between two women or two men.
I'm not saying that it's right, just that it should be thrown out. Personally, I believe that given the circumstances, all laws governing personal conduct between consenting adults should be reconsidered. The #1 thing should be adultery, and there should be serious civil penalties for it, since adultery is anything but a "victimless" act. A marriage is, among other things, a contractual obligation, and like all contracts, it can be dissolved by the consent of the parties. However, if there's adultery and it causes the dissolution of the marriage, there should be a penalty. There should be a serious look at the concept of "no fault" divorce. I've believed for a long time that "no fault" divorce is far more detrimental to the institution of marriage than anything else, including homosexual marriage.
Mark
As to my major premise being in doubt ("As many married people commit sodomy as single people"), show me any evidence that indicates that married couples engage less frequently in oral or anal sex than singles. Since the definition of sodomy is copulation involving any but the "natural" genitals, I maintain that your position is less likely than mine.
Actually, I believe that if you check, Lot did NOT offer his daughters to the visitors for sex. When the visitors (actually angels in disguise) arrived, the townfolk wanted to amuse themselves sexually with the visitors. Lot offered his daughters to the townfolk in their stead, in order to protect the visitors. In this case, he did what he believed to be the lesser of the evils.
Mark
Then how do you explain that those same laws exist in cultures that don't recognize (or even know of) the Judeo-Christian ethic?
Theft, rape, murder -- all are illegal out of pure utilitarian considerations. If you are legally free to murder me, then I am legally free to murder you. Likewise with stealing, rape, etc.. In the absence of such communal constraints, civilization is impossible. It is to preserve civilization -- not a religious morality -- that such laws are passed. In fact, such constraints exist in cultures where written (statutory) law does not even exist.
Not at all... The moral crusaders are saying, "I know what's best for everyone, so you WILL do as I say." The libertarian though is simply, "what I do in the privacy of my own domocile is none of your damn business, as long as I am hurting no-one else." The libertarians are not demanding anything (as in your allusion to "give me"), but simply asking to be left alone.
Mark
But in the specific cases you mentioned, in addition to acts being moral offenses, they also cause specific and demonstrable harm to the victim. If we were to look at the Ten Commandments as a whole, they can be broken down into two types of commandments: One where you are violating "the Law" with G-d, and another where in addition to that, you're causing harm to others. Theft, envy, bearing false witness, murder are all cases where you are harming others. However, what crime are you commiting by violating the First Commandment? And with an exception to the Menendez brothers case, what crime is committed when you fail to honor your parents?
Mark
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