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.

[Cultural Jihad]

Let God sort it out.

Honoring the Sabbath is a religious custom or usage of religion. It is not a facet of religious morality, as the proscription of homosexual sodomy is. Saying that only God can judge people's actions is being really cruel to them, and endangers the soul of the one who is being tolerant of the evil.

[Clint N. Suhks]

Try to walk down the street, or see Disneyland, without perversion being paraded in front of families.

You mean I shouldn’t grope my sheep in public anymore? But homosexuals’ do in public…why can’t my sexual “orientation” just be my own business?

[Cultural Jihad]

Nonetheless, I suspect that if the government didn't in many cases forbid it, shunning could in many cases be as effective as legislation.

Where in LP.ORG do they have the fabled Shun List? By all means let's give Harry Browne's brownshirts a try before shredding a millennia of tried and true proscriptions and precedence.

[Kevin Curry]

Shunning doesn't work. The libertarians have tried shunning me many times at FR and it hasn't made a bit of difference.

[Cultural Jihad]

Not every sin should be a crime and not every crime is a sin.

Agreed. As great as it is whenever children honor their parents, the failure to do so is not an area which the law has a role in nor should have. We were talking about the cruel form of murder known as 'homosexual sodomy' though, which has been illegal in most of human history. Homosexuals may have always existed, but they have always historically suffered natural retributions for their deeds. To proscribe this form of murder is a kindness. In essence you are trying to argue for the repeal of laws against murder so as to allow God to judge them, and that doesn't pass the rightness and fairness test.

[tpaine]

Shunning doesn't work. The libertarians have tried shunning me many times at FR and it hasn't made a bit of difference.
-kev-


How pitiful. The libertarians have never tried shunning you. Why bother?
In fact its been said many times that you are FR's funniest anti-libertarian fanatic, worth your weight in gold as a comic foil.
Keep up the good work, kevin. You da man.

[Cultural Jihad]

Keep up the good work, kevin. You da man.

Committing fraud again, we see, O Principled One. Kevin spins circles around your fanaticism, tpaine, and it goads you no end.

[tpaine]

Thus, any potentially self abusive, 'dangerous' behavior can be seen as murder in the communitarian jihadic mind.

Demetia.

[tpaine]

You and kevin are the biggest 'goaders' at FR, cj...

[Cultural Jihad]

But we don't goad you, just the moral-liberalism which you so failingly try to champion.

[tpaine]

You attempt to goad me on my constitutional stance.
-- All you accomplish is to highlight your own communitarian views.

I thank you for your political idiocy, cj.

[BritExPatInFla]

No, but according to the outdated 'sodomy laws' that still exist, many of the things that are considered sodomy, have nothing to do with homosexuality, and could land quite a few heterosexual couples in hot water if the police were to bust into their bedroom in search of an 'intruder' or a 'disturbance'.

[Just mythoughts]

Please, can you not read, how many times must I put that we the people are the government.

I did not leave it out, so stop nit picking.

Debate, personal attacks poor little thing.

Only in man's evolving twisting of that document does one find right so stated, that's how Row vs. Wade became law.
A supposed right to privacy.

Your privacy has nothing to do with have sodomy being made a civil right which is what the discussion was about.

ISAIAH 3:9 THE SHEW of their countenance doth witness against them; and the declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. WOE unto their SOUL! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.

This is my standard, and if the SHEW of their countenance doth witness against them, I am not joining their countenance. If what they do is a WOE unto their SOUL then I will not join in giving SODOMY a "CIVIL RIGHTS" status. Make it a part of our legal standard.

Of course you can do whatever you so choose.

[Clint N. Suhks]

I thank you for your political idiocy, cj.

Hehehe…So says the irrelevant 2% political pipsqueak of the hysterical movement called a Liberaltarianism. You go girl!!! Whoops, I mean Harry Browne.

[Luis Gonzalez]

LOL!

You still will not answer any of the questions I addressed to you.

You still address yourself at me rather than the actual issue.

You do that because you know you are wrong.

There's nothing about sodomy being made a civil right here, that's your mind spinning an issue to suit your particular biases.

In order to enforce a law, a manner for enforcement has to be provided. You can't enforce anti-sodomy laws without providing the authorities with a means to intrude in the privacy of your home to discover a crime in progress. Sex in public places is against the law everywhere.

Spare me the Biblical righteousness schtick, unless you are also going to convince me that you will expect the government to enforce Deutoronomy, Judges, etc.

My relationship with G*d is a personal one, neither He nor I require your assistance. Nor is He a signator to the secular document we know as the Constitution, had He been, He surely would have struck down slavery.

Now, answer the questions I put to you or slither away.

If sodomy is to be a criminal act, and you have no right to privacy, I want cameras installed in every room in your house to assure the community that you are not breaking the law.

Do you agree to that?

If the rightto privacy does not exist, I want you to agree to have the government monitor all your e-mails, phone calls, letters, etc, without need of a Court order, nor reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. Do you agree to that?

[Just mythoughts]

Who do you think you are? I owe you nothing.

There is no need for cameras our Heavenly Father sees all.

I don' know what the big question is that I have not answered.

"There's nothing about sodomy being made a civil right", oh, butttttttt yes it is.

You have not been paying attention, guess you are toooooooo busy hiding from those cameras you are so worrrrrrrried about.

I don't give a wit what you do, and with whom. So play on.

What do you think that this court case is allllllll about
turning over a sodomy law under the guise of "privacy" making sodomy a CIVIL RIGHT, and yes of course with "CONSENT".

The perverts want to take away from a STATE "the people" the ability to have make sodomy illegal, thereby giving it sodomy "privacy" under a civil right.

So what will be demanded next?

Genesis came well before Deut., and Judges and those sweet little children didn't like that method of government and demanded a "man" king over them, and that is exactly what they got.

Now since the foundation of this nation was set that "RIGHTS" given to the individual by the CREATOR and no government (the people) can take, where is your right to sodomy? Can come only from twisted perverted minds cause you can't find that the CREATOR made Sodomy a "RIGHT".

It is that very thing the fact that this nation recognized the CREATOR that sets this nation apart from all others and it is whence all our blessings come from and I will stand against all the perverts removing the CREATOR from our standard. Its a national thing not a "privacy" thing.

Note I did not say and am not saying that I will stop you and the rest of the perverts from taking that away, however, by taking a stand, I have done what is required of me.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"...sodomy-vectored AIDS..."

You know something we don't know?

It seems that sodomy as been around since Biblical Old Testament times and even before that, while AIDS has only been around this past few decades.

If indeed, AIDS is sodomy-vectored as you say, where has it been these past few thousand years?

If your passion is driven by the noble cause of protecting the world from disease, you should direct you anergies at demanding answer as to the origin of the virus, rather than using it as a tool to further your bias on the subject of homosexuality.

[Pietro]

I believe that society is built upon several underpining ideas which have evolved over the millenia as survival skills for that society.

We have today so divorced ourselves from our own history that we have become unaware of just how critical these underpinings are. As we continue to chip away at and discard those underpinings our society totters and tilts. The ideas and social mores that is our foundation will not be easily repaired once they've been destroyed.

The prohibition on homosexuality is one of those underpinings.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"There is no need for cameras our Heavenly Father sees all."

Then there is no need for the government to play G*d, is there?

"The perverts want to take away from a STATE "the people" the ability to have make sodomy illegal, thereby giving it sodomy "privacy" under a civil right."

I guess you have failed miserably at showing me where the State has been given the right to regulate sexual conduct.

"...where is your right to sodomy?"

Right next to my right to self defense...also not listed in either the Constitution, nor any Amendment. Or will you also argue that we have no right to self-defense?

Taling a stand means not doing those things you believe are wrong. You are arguing that the government should have rights beyond those specifically granted and detailed by the people in the Constitution.

You don't have the right to confer that power upon the government .

[Just mythoughts]

You are talking in circles, one minute you say that the "government" is the "people" now you say "STATE" (guess who left out the "PEOPLE") has been given the "right" to regulate sexual conduct.

The state has failed at regulating "SEX" control turn on your tube.

"Then there is no need for the government to play "GOD", is there?"

The liberals do it every time they twist that document, however, our Heavenly Father is quite able and He did send us a letter telling us what would be, what things need be, and what one who tries to follow Him should be doing.

OH, poor thing, you need an interpreter, for what purpose would one have a right to bear arms?

I have not done anything to anyone but speak out about what a bunch of perverts and their supporters demand to become a standard in this nation. SODOMY = CIVIL RIGHTS.

I would be saying nothing if it was not stuck in my face demanding special status simply base on the manner of whom and how sex is done.

My stand against, is not limited to the pushers of sodomy being made a "CIVIL RIGHT".