1. Bilotta draws fire for invite to spank
2. Of Lust and the Law
3. Utah High Court Rejects Polygamy Appeal
1. Bilotta draws fire for invite to spank
2. Of Lust and the Law
3. Utah High Court Rejects Polygamy Appeal
Bilotta draws fire for invite to spank
by Emily Young
Sentinel and Enterprise (MA)
September 9, 2004
LUNENBURG — Selectman Chairman Joseph Bilotta angrily invited a fellow selectman to hit him with a belt following a heated discussion over his decision to allow a local church to hook up to the town's sewer line without paying a $45,000 connection fee.
"When the meeting's over, I'll bend over and you can take your belt off and take care of me," Bilotta told Selectman Steven deBettencourt during the televised meeting Tuesday night.
Selectman Daniel Cronin said the comment was inappropriate.
Bilotta said he made the spanking reference because deBettencourt was hammering him over the same point.
"I was saying, give me a spanking if that's what will make [deBettencourt] stop," Bilotta explained Wednesday.
[cont.]
To read this article, go to:
http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/Stories/0,1413,106~4992~2390507,00.html
To respond, write to: letters@sentinelandenterprise.com
Of Lust and the Law
by Jonathan Turley
The Washington Post
September 5, 2004
Last month, John R. Bushey Jr. was finally brought to justice in a small courthouse in Luray, Va. Bushey, the former town attorney, stood before the court as an accused criminal with reporters from all over the state in attendance. The charge was adultery. Like 23 other states, Virginia still might prosecute if a husband or wife has consensual sex outside the marriage. Ten states, including Virginia, have anti-fornication statutes as well, prohibiting sex before marriage. Like many fundamentalist Islamic states, the United States uses criminal penalties to police the morality of its citizens.
These morality laws go back to the church-based "bawdy courts" of 13th-century England. Yet, the Bushey case illustrates that there are prosecutors today who remain eager to perform this quasi-ecclesiastical role — to publicly defend the institution of the monogamous marriage, and the unwed, from the ravages of lust and desire. Because these are often unrecorded misdemeanor cases, the specific number of prosecutions is impossible to determine. However, the Bushey case is far from unique. Since 1980, adultery cases have been recorded from Alabama to Massachusetts to Pennsylvania. And in 2003, Georgia prosecuted an anti-fornication case.
This latest adultery prosecution, in a county circuit court in Virginia, should motivate us to finally ban our American version of bawdy courts and force ambitious prosecutors to focus on our courtrooms rather than our bedrooms.
[cont.]
To read this article, go to:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62581-2004Sep4.html
To respond, write to: the author at jturley@law.gwu.edu
or the editors at letters@washpost.com
Utah High Court Rejects Polygamy Appeal
by Travis Reed
Associated Press (via The News Tribune, Tacoma WA)
September 3, 2004
SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Supreme Court on Friday denied an appeal from a man convicted of having five wives who argued that anti-bigamy laws violated his First Amendment right to religious freedom.
Attorney John Bucher had argued polygamy was part of Tom Green's religion, and that Utah's laws for cohabitation were so vague that Green had no way to know he was in violation.
An unanimous Supreme Court disagreed, however, noting Utah's bigamy statute "does not attempt to target only religiously motivated bigamy. Any individual who violates the statute, whether for religious or secular reasons, is subject to prosecution."
Bucher said Green and his wives were disappointed, and that he might seek an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
[cont.]
To read this article, go to:
http://www.tribnet.com/24hour/nation/story/1622764p-9311233c.html
To respond, write to: letters@mail.tribnet.com
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