Letter: Sodomy Law More a Lesson in Assault on Free Choice
Athens Daily News, December 4, 1998
Box 912, Athens, GA 30603
Email: editor@onlineathens.com
Online mailer: http://www.athensnewspapers.com/feedback.html
Contrary to Mr. Slife's letter (Dec. 1), I laud the state's Supreme Court ruling that
the existing sodomy law is unconstitutional.
The appeal Mr. Slife makes to the "novel proposition" of victimless crime is
a red herring. The 32 states that do not have sodomy laws are perfectly capable of
recognizing that adultery, fornication, and "consensual incest" are not victimless
crimes.
To assert that the sodomy statute acted as a "teacher of moral principle"
begs the question of whether any law legislating morality is legitimate. A
necessary condition of any moral conduct is freedom from coercion in the exercise of that
conduct.
Therefore, any statute compelling ethical behavior is, in fact, an assault on the very
foundation of morality itself: free choice.
If it does come to pass that the Republican Party pushes hard for a new sodomy statute,
as is mentioned in the Nov. 25 editorial, then in the name of morality and individual
rights I will join the Democratic Party.
-- Richard Shedenhelm
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