The Assembly overwhelmingly voted in favor of a bill to repeal the adultery law last month, and a Senate committee last week moved a matching bill to the floor for a full vote that could come as soon as this week.
“Any criminal law that penalizes intimate behavior between consenting adults does not deserve to be on the books,” said Mr. Lavine, who added that he has been “happily married” for 54 years.
While adultery is still illegal in a handful of states (in Oklahoma, Michigan and Wisconsin, adultery is considered a felony offense), the vast majority of states repealed their adultery laws long ago or never outlawed it in the first place.
New York’s law declares a person guilty of adultery “when he engages in sexual intercourse with another person at a time when he has a living spouse, or the other person has a living spouse,” according to New York’s penal code. Adultery is classified as a Class B misdemeanor, and it is punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a $500 fine.
The push to decriminalize adultery is about more than updating the penal code to reflect modern values, Mr. Lavine said. He viewed recent events, including an Alabama judge’s ruling that frozen embryos in test tubes are children and the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision rejecting the constitutional right to an abortion, as evidence of a growing political desire to foist governmental oversight on sex and chip away at Americans’ assumed right to privacy.
“We are all in danger of losing our rights,” Mr.…
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Do you believe that consensual private behavior between adults should be regulated by law?
@9L8J2T42mos2MO
I believe adults can make their own decisions through adultery
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@RhinoGabriellaLibertarian2mos2MO
The greatest threat of such laws is that they are arbitrary. They are not used, but they can be to go after someone the system fears.
@ReformNickDemocrat2mos2MO
Why should fraud in every other area of life be illegal but not adultery? A person who commits adultery is engaged in an ongoing fraud that causes tremendous suffering to their spouse and exposes the spouse to disease. Each sexual act that happens in the belief that your spouse is faithful when they are not is in many ways non consensual as it happens under a false belief that it is safe and that you are in an exclusive relationship. Mugging causes far less damage. If you don't want to be subject to legal ramifications for breaking a contract of exclusivity don't enter into the contract or dissolve if when you no longer want to be exclusive. 90 days is getting off very easy.
@ImportedPoultryForward2mos2MO
“Any criminal law that penalizes intimate behavior between consenting adults does not deserve to be on the books,”
Does this include prostitution?
@ExuberantQuicheVeteran2mos2MO
I'm surprised to read (apparently) that no one who has had the anti-adultery law applied against oneself has not appealed the decision to the Court of Appeals. While other states might have repealed such laws, other states' highest courts have abrogated them (and others, such as alienation of affection) as obsolete.
@GenerousRhinoNo Labels2mos2MO
I wish I had known adultery was criminal 30 years ago when my lawyer ex-husband left me, along with our 8-month-old and 3-year-old, for his first cousin.
@CockatooTimVeteran2mos2MO
A number of points in this story raise some questions.
“Whose right to privacy was infringed on?” Mr. Degnan said. “Whose marriage was put on display in the media?”
In the cited case the pair were having intercourse in a public park. I would suggest their rights to privacy were lost as soon as they embarked on that decision.
As to the woman being the only one charged with adultery, was the man even married? The author failed to mention that, as the law was written it would appear to only apply to those who are married.
As to the comment "He added, “You… Read more
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