It can only be heartening to those who have been breaking the law to know that certain conduct is no longer a crime.
A sin, perhaps, but not a crime.
The venerable crime of fornication, Lutin for facking, has been struck down, but where's the thunder and lightning?
Don't worry, expect to hear some.
Government is going out of the morality business.
No longer may government bow down to private bias, including private morality that is so irrational (crazy) that it cannot pass rational basis.
Which points out something about the rational basis. Couldn't a ban against fornication be justified on public health grounds? On the theory that legislators could reasonably believe that rampant sexual relations promoted certain kinds of disease?
Of course they could. Seriously.
But that's not what the Court said in Lawrence. The Texas anti-gay sodomy statute was declared unconstitutional because it bumped into the constitutional right of privacy.
Here's the article by Prof. Joanna Grossman, of Hofstra U. Law School, in Findlaw, describing the reasoning by which the Virginia Supreme Court of Virginia struck down its 200 year old law.
The Republic is now safe, or at least safer, from our own Taliban, and maybe even the Vice Squad, affectionately known in the old days as the Pussy Posse. San Francisco's Sol Weiner and Pete Maloney must be turning over wherever they are. Sol and Pete were the police officers charged with viewing public performances of such entertainers as Lenny Bruce and busting them for saying bad words, and young ladies on-stage who dropped a pasty while bumping and grinding away. Legend has it that they didn't bust "Hair" because Sol liked the music so much.
Well, now, if fornication is protected, and sodomy is protected, then I guess sexual freedom for lesser sexual activity is protected from being criminalized as well.
Does this include the right of young ladies to do the tramp walk in the red light districts and sell what they're selling. Private entertainment, as it were. The pursuit of happiness in small doses.
How about the right of pole dancers to advance to lap-dancing, where the tips are bigger?
If it's legal for two to engage in sexual intercourse, then why not lap dancing, where more is just around the corner, or the curtain.
Las Vegas's law against caressing and fondling was held unconstitutional in a Las Vegas court just the other day. You can read about it here in "Lap Dancing in Las Vegas"
And the federal obscenity statute was declared unconstitutional by a federal district court in Pennsylvania this week. You can read about it in "Obscenity." Both published January 23, 2005 here. Or Google this site using "Extreme Associates."
We've eliminated the bans on porn, fondling, caressing, sodomy, and fornication in the past year-and-a-half. What worlds are left to conquer?
Enjoy your new found freedom, but don't go crazy, okay?
But prostitution is said to be illegal. Calif. Penal Code 647b.
Why is it rational for the legislature to believe that sex-for-money is a crime, but not sex which-might-be-a-public-health risk?
We'll have to wait and see what the answer to this burning question is.
Who said Constitutional Law was no fun?
That's all it is, fun.