Anti-sodomy laws violate individual liberties

The NH Sunday News ^ | 5/11/03 | Deroy Murdock

[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.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"But arguing that "individual Liberty" is at risk is a specious sophomoric argument and sophistry pure and simple."

It is a rather crude attempt at giving weight to the sodomy argument by trying to prop it up under a rather global point, isn't it?

Have a great day! And my regards to your Mother as well.

[judgeandjury]

But Kurtz overlooks the fact that anti-sodomy laws can throw adults in jail for having consensual sex.

Sodomy is NOT sex.

[muir_redwoods]

Anyone is free to adopt any religious view. No one is free to impose it on another. Civil laws are for the protection of others. No one legitimatly possesses the authority to regulate the private consensual behaviour of others so long as no direct harm comes to non-consenting parties. You may not like the private behaviour of others and you may think it sinful, but neither you nor I nor anyone else can legitimately regulate such behaviour. It's called freedom. IMHO

[MarkL]

Right and wrong are only what God says are right and wrong, not what the Libertarian Party, NAMBLA, or the Lambda Legal Defense Fund claim.

Funny, that's the same claim made by immams declaring fatwas against infidels! As well as what islamic terrorists say, as they're slaugtering innocent civilians... You're in good company.

Mark

[Cultural Jihad]

The fallacy of your argument is that disease does not stay behind hallowed closed doors, and even if it did, it would be human beings who are suffering. Perhaps we could try to resurrect Thomas Jefferson to have him strike out the inalienable rights passages in the DOI's Preamble to make the libertarians and other social-Darwinists happy.

[lelio]

We would then have to strike down all statutes against ... adultery, premarital sex, extramarital sex...

Are there statutes against those? They're grounds for divorce, but I can't see there being a state law that says anything about not having sex outside of marriage.

[Cultural Jihad]

How fortunate for you and for your loved ones that you will never require a blood transfusion, nor have to pay a higher insurance premium to treat the self-inflicted diseases of others.

[Cultural Jihad]

... but I can't see there being a state law that says anything about not having sex outside of marriage.

There were in all the states for hundreds of years, until the progressives, communists, and other Democrats started passing all this garbage so-called 'consenting adults' legislation. For your information, 'Banned in Boston' was not the name of a pre-MTV melodious troope.

[MarkL]

You know, that may be the most rational statement on the nature of marriage yet.

You may be the first person to ever accuse me of being "rational!" lol

Actually, I've got a friend who is having some serious trouble in her marriage, and it's because of her. She's decided that she's a lesbian. In fact, she had an affair with a woman last year. However, she is trying to work things out with her husband (who has been unhappy in the marriage for a number of years for other, unrelated reasons). They have a 4 year old daughter, and have decided that they WILL put their personal feelings and troubles aside for the sake of their daughter, and will do everything they can to hold the marriage together, at least until the little girl is old enough so that a divorce will not do too much harm to her. They do still love each other, but have grown apart, but are trying hard to make things for for the next 10 to 15 years for the little girl's sake.

Mark

[lelio]

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.

Good point. Take a look at No Fault car insurance states. Not only is "no fault" a complete throwing away of any rational thought (there's an accident: someone has to be at fault, or shares a percentage of the blame), but it drives up car insurance rates for everyone.
"No Fault" is just an excuse to escape reality and its consequences.

[Montfort]

I seem to remember that the people of S & G RAPED strangers of the same sex. People throughout history have been sloppy in equating raping male visitors to consenting gay men having sex with each other.

Judaism took a dim view of anything that did not help to increase the progeny of Jews, and homosexuality and Onanism do not particularly contribute to the cause of filling the world with descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But it may be that God was angry that mobs were gang-raping visitors to the towns. I mean, God didn't vaporize any of the city-states of Greece, where homosexuality was rampant.

[Just mythoughts]

"moralist police", what are you talking about there is no such thing anymore policing morals.

We had a couple of perverted twisted minds that were elected two time to be our leaders, and you are worried about moralist police.

Don't worry you will get more perversion, public and private than your silly little mind can handle, because I know that I won't be the one to put an end to this obsession with perversion, however, my own reward will come from not being intimidated by perverts, whose whole reason for being is the manner of, and whom they choose to do sex.

[MarkL]

Sodomy is NOT sex.

That's certainly Bill Clinton's definition! According to dictionary.com , the definition is, "Any of various forms of sexual intercourse held to be unnatural or abnormal, especially anal intercourse or bestiality."

Mark

[MHGinTN]

Hmm, therein is the key to disagreement ... Sodomites regard what they do to be sex. It isn't, and their recent hero, bill 'sinkEmperor' clinton, defined oral copulation (as one of the chosen copulatory methods of Sodomites) between genitals and oral cavity as not sex. Something is amiss, eh? It hink it's known as 'double speak', which of course is engaged for the obfuscatory value.

[MHGinTN]

Great minds? ... hehehe

[borntodiefree]

You made the best point so far....strike down all "statutes". You should go take a little trip down to your Black's Law Dictionary...Statutory Law = NonConstitutional Law... So under what jurisdiction are they operating(I won't go to far down this path and I'll try to stay on topic)?

Your are right, if bonehead wants to chase down his chicken, it is none of my business to force him by the barrel of a gun to stop. However, it is my duty to preach the gospel to him and give him every opportunity to repent from his sins.... The church is the one that is not doing its job, and from your statements, you would have the government take over the job of the church. The government does not have the constitutional ability to issue marriage licenses (permission to get married). It was "another" control agenda, which was initiated in the 1900s so a black man could marry a white woman.

I am completely against adultry, homosexuality, beastiality, etc... However, I do not possess the authority to go to my neighbors house to stop him from doing something that does not effect me or someone else in immeadiate danger, then I therefore (nor do you) have the authority to give a group of people (in this case our servant government) the authority to do the same.

As far as the treaty of Tripoli, you are in denial...This was signed by the president and approved by the senate. Many of the founding fathers believed in God, but not Christ, though they were strongly influenced by there Judeo-Christian lineage. Jesus has only one kingdom and it "is not of this world".

(The minor issue is seperate, but it can be made constitutionally illegal for an adult to have sexual relations with a child....different topic though)

[RJCogburn]

those who help them gain legal status simply because they are of SODOM those also become part of the WOE.

"Help them gain legal status"...imagine, requiring legal status. Backwards thinking, IMO.

Well, if allowing people to act in private with others of like mind condemns me to eternal woe, then bring it on.

[MarkL]

The fallacy of your argument is that disease does not stay behind hallowed closed doors, and even if it did, it would be human beings who are suffering. Perhaps we could try to resurrect Thomas Jefferson to have him strike out the inalienable rights passages in the DOI's Preamble to make the libertarians and other social-Darwinists happy.

Huh??? Are you saying that people with communicable diseases shouldn't be allowed to marry? What should be done with those people?

And what in the world are you babbling about in regards to Jefferson and the inalienable rights passages? "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?" Why in the world would that need to be struck out for libertarians, who are far closer to "Jeffersonian Liberals" that you are!

Maybe you can try to explain what you're talking about.

Mark

[Sam Cree]

"I mean, God didn't vaporize any of the city-states of Greece, where homosexuality was rampant."

What about Atlantis? :-D

[MHGinTN]

And yet you embrace the exploitation of pre-born individual human lives on the grounds that they have no legal status for protection, clearly implying they need to 'gain legal status' to be protected by the law from premeditated killing and exploitation.