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.

[MarkL]

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)

Tell me about it! Kansas is a "no fault" state, and I was sitting at a stop light, which was red, and there were cars in front of me. A teenager was talking on her cell phone, and was so engrossed in her conversation she didn't notice the light, or the cars that were stopped at the light, and hit me from behind! She didn't get a ticket!

Mark

[RJCogburn]

Aw, c'mon. You gotta know the difference between actions against others without their consent and those freely chosen by the parties.

[Sam Cree]

Hi, Luis, how are you?

I notice that there is what appears to be a regular column in today's Herald, "The Gay Scene."

Weird.

[RJCogburn]

Is it wrong? Yes. Should it be illegal? No, since big govt busting down doors for private acts between consenting adults is MORE wrong.

Yes. Simply put, and on the mark.

[Cultural Jihad]

The fact that people have an inalienable right to life is infringed upon when people engage in the form of murder called 'sodomy.' That people are allowed and encouraged by moral-liberals to engage in bizarre behaviors which result in their needlessly suffering and dying infringes on other's right to pursue happiness, being saddened at the needless sufferings and deaths of others.

[Cultural Jihad]

... and those freely chosen by the parties.

So the 500,000 American men who are now dead said to themselves: "I consent to commit a crime against nature, knowing full well that a now-unknown disease will crucify me, and I consent to pass this fatal disease onto others. The Libertarian proud father consents to allow me to donate my polluted blood so that his 5 year old son can become infected, too. Ain't a fully-informed consent grand?!"

[tpaine]

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, ---


In claiming sodomy laws do not violate individual liberties , Cultural Jihad wrote:

"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."



Perhaps you could become rational enought, for a moment, to explain to us all what your comment might mean, CJ?

How do 'sex sin laws' protect our unalienable rights to a private life;
liberty under the rule of constitutional law;
and the pursuit of private property?

I predict you are unable to or incapable of even trying.

[evolved_rage]

..and you are also denied the informed consent to know if the dentist, cook, barber, whatever, is dripping disease onto you or your food. Be prepared to be damned if you walk out of a restaurant inhabited by a bunch of human skeletons...

[Trace21230]

Comparing consensual adult sex to murder and robberty is totally ridiculous.

You overlook the fact that there is no victim in the former, and at least one individual who's rights are violated in the latter.

A foolish comparison, but thanks for the laugh.

Trace

[freedumb2003]

>>but are trying hard to make things for for the next 10 to 15 years for the little girl's sake.<<

Very admirable and very very rare. Most people today just say "but I want to be happy." I think it is great that your friends understood their responsibility once they created a baby. I hope they can do it.

Sorry about the "rational" thing... I'll be more careful in the future ;)

[longtermmemmory]

Lets get a few things legally straight. You can ban sexual conduct between the same sex. This is no different than banning polygamy, baning animal sex, sex between adult relatives. There are a class of conduct that can be banned. The constitution was never intended as an a moral document.

[Trace21230]

"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."

Fair enough, but you forgot to include the Catholic Church, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson on your list.

Trace

[freedumb2003]

>> However, it is my duty to preach the gospel to him and give him every opportunity to repent from his sins<<

Preach your gospel at me and I will punch you right in the nose.

Self-important twit -- like so many "I am saved and am therefore better than you" procelytes. I believe that there are morals and that there needs to be shame and overall standards in life. This does NOT mean I want the Christian Taliban.

[Cultural Jihad]

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.

Since when did it become okay to harm yourself? I missed the repeal of inalienable rights which the moral-liberals and other progressives enacted recently. The moral-liberals used to claim, before the advent of AIDS:

"Do what you want to, so long as it doesn't hurt anyone."

Now they had to alter their Great Dictum, since it was shown to cause great harm:

"Do what you want to, so long as it doesn't [apparently] hurt anyone [else] [immediately]."

[Just mythoughts]

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


"PRIVATE" word now perverted to cover what is openly demanded. Legal status "civil right" for sex acts done with consent in private is the ultimate "lie".

The constitution does not offer "privacy" as a right, only man twisted need to "hide" their dirty little deeds got everyone on an emotional "feeling" demanding something not given.

I don't give a rat's behind what you do in private and if what is done in private is kept private then why in .ell is this a public issue.

Not only has perversion of Sodom become public, the perversion of our legal system is now what is at issue.

The little boys playing with each other, in Texas knew what the law was, so they broke the law, now in order to take that law down they demand the rest of us to feel bad that their "privacy" was broken and that "privacy" which they have no right to becomes the issue in demanding that their playing with each other become a "civil right".

No claim has been made that these two boys were targets because of the manner they choose to have sex.

A physical perversion now becomes twisted into the perversion of our legal system. Talk about hate, these twisted bunch try and intimidate the rest of us calling us bigots, by demanding that "we the people" give them status in the legal system making sodomy a "CIVIL RIGHT".

Your woe is just that your woe. Not talking about your personal choice.

[Cultural Jihad]

Preach your gospel at me and I will punch you right in the nose.

Sheesh. The law says that someone preaching allows you to lash out in self-defense, eh?

[tpaine]

The fact that people have an inalienable right to life is infringed upon when people engage in the form of murder called 'sodomy.' That people are allowed and encouraged by moral-liberals to engage in bizarre behaviors which result in their needlessly suffering and dying infringes on other's right to pursue happiness, being saddened at the needless sufferings and deaths of others.
85 -cj-



..and you are also denied the informed consent to know if the dentist, cook, barber, whatever, is dripping disease onto you or your food. Be prepared to be damned if you walk out of a restaurant inhabited by a bunch of human skeletons
-e_r-


Good lord, you two are obsessed with aids. CJ thinks 'sodomy' is murder because of it, and you think anyone afflicted is a 'typhoid fairy' type.

Get some pyschiatric help. - Soon.

[freedumb2003]

>>Sheesh. The law says that someone preaching allows you to lash out in self-defense, eh? <<

No, actually the law says that would be assault and battery. But that is how angry the statement "preach the gospel to them" makes me.

How about having devil worshippers, or worse, Muslims, preaching their gospel to you? It's the arrogance that gets me more than the content.

[Publius6961]

You still don't see it do you.

Best regards.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

You can whine about the law when you are getting your nose reset in the hospital. I won't accept morons imposing their views on me.