September 15, 2004


Adultery a Crime? The Turks Think Again and Say No
By SUSAN SACHS


AN, Turkey, Sept. 14- After suffering a wave of criticism from European Union officials, women's groups, newspaper columnists and finally from its own members, Turkey's governing party abandoned a proposal on Tuesday to criminalize adultery.

... and several other Southern states, too.

The Link


Va. Adultery Case Goes From Notable to a Nonevent

Plea Deal Puts an End to ACLU Hopes of Testing Seldom-Used Law

By Michelle Boorstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 25, 2004; Page B04

For a while, it looked as if John R. Bushey Jr. might go down in history as the man who challenged Virginia's anti-adultery law, which cost him his 32-year career as an attorney for the Shenandoah Valley town of Luray.

After pleading guilty last October to having sex with someone besides his wife of 18 years -- who happens to be Luray's town clerk -- Bushey, 66, changed his mind and appealed, positioning himself to become a crusader in the movement to decriminalize consensual sex. That movement, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, got a major boost last year when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the anti-sodomy law in Texas.

Then Bushey changed his mind again.

Last week, a Page County Circuit Court judge approved a deal that closed the book on the case without a trial. Bushey did 20 hours of community service, and in exchange prosecutors agreed not to pursue the case against him, wiping the misdemeanor from his record. He could have been fined as much as $250 if the conviction had stood.

So the case fizzled as a rallying cry and served only to underscore an old -- if much-ignored -- point: Adultery is illegal in Virginia. It is also illegal in Maryland, as it was in the District until the law there was repealed last spring.

Although prosecutors wouldn't talk initially about their reasons for invoking the seldom-used law against Bushey, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Glenn Williamson said yesterday that the state has an interest in punishing adultery. "We're not out beating bushes and certainly we're not peeking in windows," she said. "However, in this case, it was thrown in our face."

Bushey did not return phone calls, and neither his lawyer, ACLU attorney Rebecca Glenberg, nor Williamson would say much about the evidence. The other woman, Nellie Mae Hensley, 53, triggered the case by complaining to police about Bushey.

"I don't think it was right that it was dismissed on him," said Hensley of the case, which she said caused her so much stress that she sought therapy and medication.

Williamson said that once the ACLU became involved, he decided Bushey had been punished enough: He had admitted guilt, been asked to resign and done community service.

Like Prince William Circuit Court Judge Herman Whisenant Jr., Williamson, who usually works in Frederick County, was brought in from outside because everyone in Luray knew Bushey.

"I preferred the case be resolved rather than tried," said Williamson, who said he has prosecuted adultery cases, though he couldn't recall when. "If [Bushey] hasn't learned that he shouldn't be doing these things, an additional $250 fine wouldn't make any difference. And as far as general deterrence, it should now be widely known that adultery is a crime in Virginia."

Glenberg, of the ACLU's Richmond office, said that as Bushey's attorney, she wanted him to get the best possible deal. She said she is confident that civil liberties groups will continue to press for sexual privacy after the Supreme Court ruling.

In Luray, the case represents something less grand than the chance to help shape national privacy law.

"I grew up here, and I learned a long time ago not to pay attention because it's typical small-town U.S.A.," said Sam Price, a lawyer in Luray, population about 4,500. "Everybody's a rumormonger, and you don't know what to believe."

Another woman, a financial adviser who spoke on condition that her name not be used, said she thinks local residents are too busy with the "petty and shameful stuff of small towns because they don't have enough to keep themselves busy. . . . I think the law in this community is used as a weapon."

Mayor Ralph Dean praised the work of Bushey, who now works in private practice in town. He also said he was glad a deal was reached in the case. "Then it'll die," he said, "and we won't have to hear much about it."

Just out of curiosity, am I the only member of TDCAA who speaks Turkish and has Turkish law books in my office?

Check out The Morality of Law by Lon Fuller. It is all about the pitfalls of legislating morality.

What is the difference between making the sin of murder a crime and making the sin of adultery a crime? Is it frequency? Doesn't that make the Penal Code elitist?

But, at least one court has ruled that a prosecutor has no colorable claim of jurisdiction as a prosecutor to enforce the laws of God. Doe v. Phillips, 81 F. 3d 1204 (2nd. Cir. 1996).

quote:

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Originally posted by John Bradley:
What is the difference between making the sin of murder a crime and making the sin of adultery a crime?

---

The difference is the level of consensus in society on the issue in question, as well as the the viability of the issue in question as a target for moral behavior.

Most folks agree--consensus--that casual killing is wrong, and therefore it is punished in most societies.

The perceived danger about legislating all morality is that, by enunciating a binding rule, you create a ceiling for people's behavior--there is no higher goal to aspire to. By legislating adultery a crime, you might actually encourage people not to marry so that they can fornicate at will. After all, they are not committing adultery, right? So, by targeting adultery, you may actually increase promiscuity, perversion, and illegitmacy, other sins arguably of equal importance to adultery. Supporters of this framework would argue that you should enact as few moral rules as possible, and only those supported by the broadest consensus, so that people will have no difficulty identifying and believing in the core rules, and no disincentive to set their own moral targets as high as possible.

Isn't fornication a crime in some states?

Compare Matthew 15:19
"For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders."

and

Utah Code 76-7-104 provides: "(1) Any unmarried person who shall voluntarily engage in
sexual intercourse with another is guilty of
fornication. (2) Fornication is a class B
misdemeanor."

Mike,

Best I can do is say I've been there. And knew how to say broken. (Described a C-130 that had a catastrophic tire failure, it was broken for about a week, before some brave crew (not me) flew it out gear down)

Gordon

Mike

I have the Louisiana Code here in my office at Barksdale. It looks like Turkish to me.