The Injustice of Sex Laws

Same sex relationships are illegal in more than 70 countries. In nine the penalty for engaging in such relationships is death. Here in the United States, nearly half of the states — 23 — have some form of law that prohibits sodomy.

I believe that homosexuality is immoral. However, my private religious beliefs are irrelevant to the larger question that these statistics raise: Should any government have the right to punish its citizens for having consensual sex?

The obvious answer should be no.

Laws prohibiting same sex couples or any consenting adult from engaging in sexual activity should be repealed with one exception — incest — which I will discuss later.

Nothing is more personal than the way people choose to shape their sexual relationships. Government has no business intruding into people’s bedrooms or private intimate relationships.

This doesn’t mean everyone must consider all sexual acts acceptable. It simply means that as long as the participants are consenting adults, then the government has no right to use force to try to prevent such behavior or punish people for engaging in certain acts. There is no justification for executing, or imprisoning, peaceful citizens because of their sexual choices.

For sex to truly be considered “consensual,” two conditions must exist. First, everyone involved must willingly agree to participate in the sexual acts. Second, those who agree must understand what they are agreeing to participate in.

The second requirement — that they understand the nature of the act or acts — is why a legal age of consent is necessary. I would propose 16 as a proper legal age of consent, but that is a debate for another time.

Though incest may be consensual sex between two adults, there is the risk that a third party who did not consent to the act will be negatively affected. I am talking, of course, about the child that may be created as a result of the act. The child is highly likely to be born with significant mental disorders, physical defects, or both. Because the non-consenting child is at such a high risk for experiencing such harmful effects as a result of the adults’ actions, incest is an exception to my thesis that all laws regulating sex between consenting adults should be repealed.

In short, as long as the sexual acts between adults are consensual, and do not place a non-consenting third party at a high risk, then the government has no right to regulate or prohibit the actions.

The most common cases of non-traditional (i.e. not between one man and one woman) sexual relationships are homosexual relationships and polygamous relationships. Both types of relationships are punishable by law in many countries, including the United States.

This is an abuse of government power in any society, and particularly in one such as the United States that claims to offer freedom for its citizens. With the exception of those who believe in authoritarianism or anarchism, most people believe that the proper role of government in a free society is to protect individuals’ rights to life, liberty, and property, and not to abrogate these rights. It is accepted that it is fair to have laws against murder, assault, rape, and theft, but that actions that do not intrude on the rights of others should not be restricted.

When a government imprisons or in any way punishes peaceful consenting adults for having sex, that government has stepped outside of its proper boundaries and is acting unjustly.

The debate over government’s proper role in its citizens’ sex lives prompts us to consider what the government’s role is in any private relationship, such as marriage or friendship. I would argue that the government has no role in any peaceful, private relationships, regardless of whether those relationships involve sex, friendship, or marriage.

Any government that presumes it has the power to deem which peaceful human relationships are good and which are bad is acting outside of its proper limits. All people deserve equal treatment under the law, and the easiest way to ensure that this occurs is not to grant marriage licenses to homosexuals or polygamists, but to remove government altogether from marriage and private sexual relationships. Consensual sex, marriage, and friendships are private affairs. The government should have no right to regulate such matters.

Some claim that the government should have the right to deem some consensual sex acceptable and some consensual sex unacceptable, and should also have the power to punish anyone who engages in the “unacceptable” kind of consensual sex. If this were the case, it’s difficult to imagine what the government wouldn’t have the power to regulate and, thus, punish.

The government should not have the right to tell its citizens how to have sex. Nor should the government have the right to decide which sexual positions are legal, or when sex can legally occur. Punishment should not be imposed for engaging in consensual sexual acts.

Everyone has a different concept of morality, and the government should not have the right to impose on its citizens its version of morality. The poet T.S. Eliot once wrote:

They constantly try to escape
From the darkness outside and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.

However, no government system can make someone good, and legislating morality doesn’t make a society moral. An act can only be truly moral when someone has the freedom to act immorally, but chooses otherwise.

As stated earlier, same sex relationships are illegal in more than 70 countries and are punishable by death in nine of those countries. This is clearly an injustice and an abuse of government power. Any law regulating sex between consensual adults is wrong and should be repealed.