Delegate Thomas Garrett has proposed a bill that would make it a felony in Virginia for anyone to have oral or anal sex with a minor. But genital sex? Well, Virginia law would, even if this bill is enacted, provide that genital sex between an adult and a 15-to-17-year-old is a misdemeanor, and sex among […]
Archive | Sexual Conduct Restrictions
Brown v. Buhman and Bestiality
By Eugene Kontorovich on December 16, 2013 4:16 am in Constitutional Law, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom, Sexual Conduct Restrictions, Sexual Orientation
The Utah polygamy-rights decision is truly a courageous civil rights ruling. Most sexual liberties decisions going all the way back to Griswold v. Connecticut come at a time when the relevant practices have won very broad acceptance, especially among the educated elites. Not so with polygamy, which is quite far from the lives of the […]
Brown v. Buhman isn’t so complicated
By David Kopel on December 14, 2013 4:35 am in Criminal Law, Fourteenth Amendment, Gay Rights, Privacy, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom, Sexual Conduct Restrictions, Sexual Orientation, Supreme Court, Television
To me, today’s decision of the United States District Court for the District of Utah in Brown v. Buhman is much clearer and carefully-reasoned that Orin finds it to be. There may be plenty of blogging on the case, and Eugene’s analysis next week, after he’s had a chance to analyze it, will provide the perspective […]
Statutory Rape of 15-Year-Old by 18-Year-Old
The Huffington Post has an article titled, “Kaitlyn Hunt, Florida Teen, Faces Felony Charges Over Same-Sex Relationship”; Opposing Views picks it up as, “Florida Teen Kaitlyn Hunt Arrested, Expelled Over Same-Sex Relationship”; Examiner.com, which is linked to by the Huffington Post piece, has the headline, “Florida teen fights expulsion and criminal charges for same sex […]
Woman Parading Dressed as Pope from Waist Up, Naked from Waist Down, Charged with Public Nudity
TribLive (Pittsurgh) reports: Carnegie Mellon University police on Friday filed charges of indecent exposure against two art students accused of public nudity during a campus parade sponsored by the College of Fine Arts. Police identified the female student accused of parodying the pope as she paraded nude from the waist down as Katherine B. O’Connor, […]
Support for So-Called “Honor Killings”
By Eugene Volokh on May 2, 2013 2:34 pm in Religion, Sex Discrimination, Sexual Conduct Restrictions
The Pew Forum’s survey of international Muslim attitudes asks, among other things, Some people think that if a woman engages in premarital sex or adultery it is justified for family members to end her life in order to protect the family honor. Do you personally feel that this practice is [often justified, sometimes justified, rarely […]
Can You Get a Restraining Order Against Someone’s Having Sex with Your Daughter (Who Is Above the Age of Consent But Under 18)?
By Eugene Volokh on March 13, 2013 6:31 pm in Children's Rights, Parental Rights, Sexual Conduct Restrictions
From today’s Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision in E.C.O. v. Compton: This case concerns whether a parent may seek an extension of an abuse prevention order under G.L. c. 209A to prevent his daughter, who was sixteen years of age [and thus above the age of consent in Massachusetts] from voluntarily engaging in a sexual […]
The Bestiality Brief
By Eugene Kontorovich on December 5, 2012 4:20 pm in Constitutional Law, Fourteenth Amendment, Gay Rights, Religion and the Law, Sexual Conduct Restrictions, Sexual Orientation, Uncategorized
[Updated with link to Prof. Hayes’s new paper.] The man-bites-dog story of Germany legalizing then banning bestiality raises the question of the constitutionality of such laws in the U.S. Most states criminalize zoophilia, and in many places the bans have been enacted quite recently. Moreover, the laws are from time to time enforced. The 14th […]
Government Out of Bedrooms, but into Barnyards
By Eugene Kontorovich on December 2, 2012 6:52 pm in Constitutional Law, Fourteenth Amendment, Gay Rights, Libertarianism, Privacy, Sexual Conduct Restrictions, Sexual Orientation, Uncategorized
I should say at the outset that I approach this delicate subject sheepishly, but this development bears noting. In a rare example of a Western country taking steps to restrict previously recognized sexual liberties, Germany is seeking to ban bestiality. (Its supporters call it zoophilia – are opponents zoophobes?) This will presumably put out to […]
Prosecutor’s Policy: We Won’t Enforce Polygamy Ban, Because of a Concern About Religious Minority Group
So says a County Attorney’s declaration filed on May 22, 2012 in a federal case challenging the polygamy ban on constitutional grounds: The policy, as officially adopted by the … County Attorney’s Office, states: Prosecution of Bigamy Crimes: The … County Attorney’s Office will prosecute the crime of bigamy … in two circumstances: (1) When […]
“Current Laws on All Forms of Pornography and Obscenity Need to Be Vigorously Enforced”
So says the Republican Party Platform, and this leads me to questions I asked in 2004, when the Bush Administration called for a pornography crackdown. As we know, there’s lots of porn of all varieties out there on the Internet, including porn that might well be seen as offensive to “community standards” in at least […]
Suing a Spouse — or a Lover — for Cheating (or Other Lies or Failures to Disclose)?
By Eugene Volokh on May 2, 2012 5:37 pm in Knowingly False Statements of Fact, Sexual Conduct Restrictions, Torts
From Neal v. Neal (Idaho 1994): Mary Neal contends that she has alleged a prima facie case of battery against Thomas Neal. Her battery claim is founded on her assertion that although she consented to sexual intercourse with her husband during the time of his affair, had she known of his sexual involvement with another […]
Questions About Whether the Sex-With-Dead-Spouses Law Has Actually Been Proposed in Egypt
AllahPundit (Hot Air), Andrew Sullivan, and Dan Murphy (Christian Science Monitor) question whether a bill allowing people to have sex with their dead spouses (for up to six hours after the death) was indeed proposed in the Egyptian Parliament. The story apparently began in the Al Ahram newspaper, and was then taken up by the […]
Legalizing Spousal Necrophilia in Egypt?
[UPDATE: Some commentators have expressed skepticism about whether such a proposal actually exists, and argue that the original Al Ahram and Al Arabiya reports on this may be incorrect; I have more on that in this post.] Al Arabiya reports: Egypt’s National Council for Women (NCW) has appealed to the Islamist-dominated parliament not to approve […]
“Right to Respect for … Private and Family Life” Doesn’t Protect Brother-Sister Incest
So the European Court for Human Rights held in Case of Stübing v. Germany (Apr. 12, 2012). The case involved a brother and sister who were reared apart for their whole lives; the sexual relationship began when the sister was sixteen and the brother seven years older, though sixteen is above the age of consent […]