Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 12:29:23 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug Barton <DougB@FreeBSD.org> To: Colin Percival <colin.percival@wadham.ox.ac.uk> Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Senator Santorum Message-ID: <20030506121650.K51947@12-234-22-23.pyvrag.nggov.pbz> In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.1.20030506182557.07db3820@popserver.sfu.ca> References: <ADAEB726-7FD9-11D7-8EA4-000393A335A2@mac.com> <5.0.2.1.1.20030506182557.07db3820@popserver.sfu.ca>
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On Tue, 6 May 2003, Colin Percival wrote:
> At 10:23 06/05/2003 -0700, Doug Barton wrote:
> >"And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex
> >within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to
> >polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery.
> >You have the right to anything."
> >
> >The annoying thing about what he said from the standpoint of the gay
> >rights folks is that he's right. It really is a slippery legal slope.
>
> Not quite. Bigamy and polygamy aren't questions of sex; they're
> questions of marriage.
They are also crimes in the US, which is the point he's making. Actually,
you're supporting my argument, even if you don't realize it. :) If we
decide that removing the laws against sodomy is ok because you have the
right to do whatever you want behind closed doors, then the laws against
the other things he mentioned should be removed too, for the same reason
(see below for one important qualification). Then, once those laws are
removed, laws against a lot of other consensual crimes should be removed
too. That's the slippery slope.
Note once again for the record, I'm not commenting on whether or not any
of this is a good thing. I'm merely pointing out that there IS a slippery
slope argument to be made here, and that Sentator Santorum is being
demonized unjustly (and inaccurately).
> As for incest and adultery... personally I don't see where the problem
> lies with incest, providing that no (genetically impaired) children are
> born of it,
... and providing that all parties involved are "adults" in the sense that
they are capable of giving informed consent to the acts in question. That
of course is an entirely different topic of discussion.
> and I can't think of any civilized state where adultery is illegal.
The limitations of your knowledge are not my responsibility. :) To take a
trivial example, the Uniform Code of Military Justice in the US has
penalties for adultery, although I'm not enough of an expert to make the
distinction of whether it proclaims it "illegal," which is an oft-misused
term.
Doug
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