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This article brings up a whole lot of thoughts.
The majority didn't want to redefine what adultery means? I hope the legislature uses the opportunity to define it.
By ANNE SAUNDERSThe first think I thought here is that the court interpreted the definition of adultery too narrowly. Just intercourse? It's only wrong if the sex involves a penis entering a vagina? So all those teenagers who think they're still virgins because they've only had oral sex are right? Come on people, it's still sex.
Associated Press Writer
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- If a married woman has sex with another woman, is that adultery? The New Hampshire Supreme Court, ruling in a divorce case, says no.
The court was asked to review a case in which a husband accused his wife of adultery after she had a sexual relationship with another woman. Robin Mayer of Brownsville, Vt., was named in the divorce proceedings of David and Sian Blanchflower of Hanover.
A Family Court judge decided Mayer and Sian Blanchflower's relationship did constitute adultery, but Mayer appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that gay sex is not adultery under New Hampshire divorce law. Three of the five justices agreed. Two others - generally considered the court's more conservative members - did not.
Part of the problem in New Hampshire is that adultery is not defined in the state's divorce laws. So the court looked up "adultery" in Webster's dictionary and found that it mentions intercourse. And it found an 1878 case that referred to adultery as "intercourse from which spurious issue may arise." Other states, including Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, have defined adultery in broader terms - beyond intercourse - to include gay sex.
"I think the majority opinion is unintentionally trivializing same-sex relations and violating modern notions of the sanctity of marriage," said Marcus Hurn, a professor at Franklin Pierce Law Center. A sexual relationship, whether heterosexual or homosexual, is "exactly an equivalent betrayal and that, I think, is the ordinary meaning most people would give."
But the majority did not want the New Hampshire courts to step onto the slippery slope of defining which sex acts outside of intercourse might amount to adultery. "This standard would permit a hundred different judges ... to decide just what individual acts are so sexually intimate as to meet the definition," the court said.
The dissenters said adultery should be defined more broadly to include other intimate extramarital sexual activity. A relationship is adulterous "because it occurs outside of marriage and involves intimate sexual activity, not because it involves only one particular sex act," said Chief Justice David Brock and Justice John Broderick.
David Blanchflower had no comment on the ruling. Sian Blanchflower and Mayer did not immediately return calls for comment.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
original AP article here
The majority didn't want to redefine what adultery means? I hope the legislature uses the opportunity to define it.
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no subject
Date: 2003-11-08 09:16 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2003-11-08 09:50 am (UTC)From:Well, the historical reason for citing adultery as a legal reason to get out of marriage was the whole "spurious issue" problem-- illegitimate children. It had nothing to do with "my spouse doesn't love me anymore." In that context, the only type of sex that would constitute adultery would be penis-in-vagina intercourse. So they either need to define adultery in the divorce law, or change it to a "proof of absence of affection" or somesuch.
Personally, I don't think someone should have to come up with a reason for getting a divorce, unless there's a contest on division of assets-- then you need someone to blame, so you can take away all their worldly possessions, or prevent the court from taking away all of yours.
divorce
Date: 2003-11-08 09:56 am (UTC)From:Sex
Date: 2003-11-08 10:30 am (UTC)From:I can't believe that "penis-like artifice" just came out of my mouth.
I can't believe that I just made a vague reference to a penis having been in my mouth.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-08 10:30 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2003-11-08 12:50 pm (UTC)From:Long ago--in the 70s--I taught the new employees each year how to answer simple tax questions. When it came to claiming someone as a dependant, there was a bit of the code that said dependants didn't have to be relatives if they lived with you all year. BUT, you couldn't claim someone lived with you all year if their doing so "violated local law". The students sat up and got interested here because they could think and talk about sex. :^)
Wisc. Statutes, then, said it was illegal to have sex with someone if you weren't married to each other. To clarify this they spelled out in explicit detail what it meant to have sex. It included oral sex and sex with animals. That long ago, they ignored gay sex.
..
Date: 2003-11-08 10:39 am (UTC)From:Re: ..
Date: 2003-11-08 09:40 pm (UTC)From:It is interesting that NH has no legal definition of adultery.
Re: ..
Date: 2003-11-10 01:40 pm (UTC)From:IMO there should be no legal significance to adultery. I REALLY don't want the government to get into the habit of punishing consenting adults for having sex.
Re: ..
Date: 2003-11-10 08:20 pm (UTC)From:He seems to be trying to use the law to enforce Biblical morals. But then she seems to have broken her (marriage) contract with him. If a fault could be found with regards to a divorce, I'd say she made it. But that's a whole different issue.
Re: ..
Date: 2003-11-11 08:50 am (UTC)From:As for contracts: You can't make contracts for sex - either abstaining or not abstaining. No court will enforce such a contract, and for good reason.
Re: ..
Date: 2003-11-11 09:58 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2003-11-08 12:59 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2003-11-08 09:38 pm (UTC)From: