Last edited: February 06, 2005
Some Advice on ConsentThe Daily Camera , July 20, 2003
1048 Pearl Street, Boulder, CO 80306
Fax: 303-442-1508
Email: openforum@thedailycamera.comBy Clay Evans
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in his recent dissent from the court痴 dismantling of anti-sodomy laws, actually took a sane approach.
He argued that a Texas law criminalizing homosexual sodomy was 都illy? because it criminalizes consensual behavior between people of the same sex that is legal for members of the opposite sex.
But Thomas believes that legislatures, not the courts, should make such decisions. Not always: If it were up to states, we would have no Civil Rights Act. But at least he痴 sticking to judicial concepts, rather than stooping to lunatic fear-mongering.
In a recent column, Mona Charen started with a 都tates? rights? argument, but soon staggered off into ranting hysteria. She wrote that the decision leaves the door open to legalization of 殿dult incest, bigamy, bestiality and many other sexual activities.? She waxed indignant that 都ome homosexuals engage in 訴ntimate conduct? in the complete absence of a 叢ersonal bond,? as anyone who痴 heard of a gay bathhouse knows.?
Gee. I never realized that sex sans 菟ersonal bond? was the sole province of gay people. Perhaps Charen hasn稚 heard of one-night-stands and infidelity and sex with prostitutes洋uch more common, one statistically assumes, than incidents of 澱ondless? gay sex.
And now the Rev. Pat Robertson has urged his followers to pray that God will remove justices who voted to strike down sodomy laws, in a thinly veiled wish that God will strike them dead. (But he痴 on the right track: I知 inclined to leave the judging to God.)
So will this ruling really destroy the 吐amily? in America? Will it pave the way for legalization of every kind of sex, no matter how depraved? No.
Unless he or she really is gay, no matter the legality of gay liaisons, few kids just 鍍ry out? homosexuality. The costs in hatred and stigmatization are耀adly葉oo high. Conversely, gay people do not 澱ecome straight? just because the law is stacked against them.
The law correctly mandates mutual consent for any sex to be legal. Children cannot consent, though sex play between kids is common, and seldom deserving of legal intervention. (Older teenagers, however, can consent, as most state laws reflect.) Animals and the dead cannot, by definition, consent.
Polygamy is trickier. But no matter how distasteful most people洋yself included庸ind it, the law should remain neutral, so long as such relationships are consenting. In cases where coercion or some other illegality (such as defrauding the government, as some Mormon polygamists have done) can be demonstrated, other laws apply.
Adult incest? Indescribably revolting to me. Even religious taboos on incest have their foundations in 都cience?: Children conceived through incest are more likely to have genetic defects. But if two related people aren稚 reproducing, I壇 argue that the state has no compelling interest in seeking to enforce anti-incest laws. I think this is rare, anyway.
So long as sex is consenting and other laws are not violated, the government should stay out of the bedroom, and even the bathhouse. But Mona, Pat and their ilk want to govern people痴 sex lives. The state should 兎nforce minimal standards of decency in its citizenry,? Charen wrote.
So long as she gets to set the standards, of course.
- Contact Clay Evans at (303) 473-1352 or evansc@dailycamera.com.
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