Reply #86: Reread the post - I was referring to adultery. [View All]

But, I was wrong. It's 20 states, not seven, in which laws against adultery still exist.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/grossman/20031216.html

According to a report in the Washington Post, a man in Luray, Virginia recently pled guilty to adultery, a crime for which the maximum penalty is a $250 fine. Ironically, it wasn't his wife who complained; it was apparently his lover. (He reportedly has reconciled with his wife.)

This case is a potent reminder--particularly for the man charged--that adultery is in fact a crime in more than twenty states. Though the laws are seldom enforced, their existence still affects the way people behave.


You may be able to sleep with whomever you choose, but you can't marry them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States

Twenty states have constitutional amendments explicitly barring the recognition of same-sex marriage, confining civil marriage to a legal union between a man and a woman. Forty-three states have statutes defining marriage to two persons of the opposite-sex. On May 18 2006, the Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted on the Federal Marriage Amendment, a proposed Constitutional amendment that would prohibit states to recognize same-sex marriages. The measure passed in committee by a party line vote. The measure was subsequently debated by the full United States Senate, but defeated in a 49-48 vote on June 7, 2006. <1>

My point being that condemning Sharia law is all well and good, but we "enlightened" westerners have more than a few
holdovers from "biblical" law that we can hardly be proud of.

Unless you believe that the laws against same-sex marriage, abortion, etc, have nothing to do with the power of our own religious fundamentalists in this country.