Cuccinelli (2008): Anti-adultery laws are good, should be enforced more!

[Landslide Lyndon]

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/ken-cuccinelli-once-backed-anti-adultery-laws-94620.html

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli once suggested that society would benefit from enforcing anti-adultery laws, according to a report dating to the Republican’s days as a state senator.

Speaking to Richmond’s Style Weekly magazine back in 2008, Cuccinelli defended laws criminalizing extramarital sex, saying that such restrictions “ought to stay on the books.”

“Frankly it wouldn’t hurt to enforce them more,” Cuccinelli is quoted saying. The magazine paraphrased Cuccinelli drawing a comparison to “perjury inasmuch as the occasional prosecution or two would get people thinking twice.”

[TDAS04]

While I'm not a fan of McAuliffe, I would enthusiastically vote for him to stop his nutcase opponent. 

[Blue3]

He's also against married couples having oral sex.

Small government!

[Non Swing Voter]

Cuccinelli is truly a disgusting human being IMO.

[RedSLC]

While I'm not a fan of McAuliffe, I would enthusiastically vote for him to stop his nutcase opponent. 

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

While I'm not a fan of McAuliffe, I would enthusiastically vote for him to stop his nutcase opponent. 

[Zioneer]

While I'm not a fan of McAuliffe, I would enthusiastically vote for him to stop his nutcase opponent. 

[DC Al Fine]

Usual reaction provoked as expected given that most of our poster see consent as the sole criterion of whether a sex act is good or bad.

Anyway, it's an interesting idea but far too difficult to enforce. He'd be better off restricting divorce laws.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think adultery should be treated as some manner of tort, personally. I don't think most of the adultery laws that are currently on the books in states that still have them are very practical or well-considered. I doubt Virginia is an exception.

[barfbag]

Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Jim McGreevy, Mark Sanford, John Ensign, John Edwards, Newt Gingrich, and Gary Hart won't want to live in Virginia then. Wait a minute, most politicians will want to avoid the state if you really think about it. Hooray!

[bedstuy]

I think adultery should be treated as some manner of tort, personally. I don't think most of the adultery laws that are currently on the books in states that still have them are very practical or well-considered. I doubt Virginia is an exception.

Seriously?  That seems completely crazy.

[barfbag]

I think adultery should be treated as some manner of tort, personally. I don't think most of the adultery laws that are currently on the books in states that still have them are very practical or well-considered. I doubt Virginia is an exception.

Seriously?  That seems completely crazy.

Don't you like the idea of pretty much putting all politicians behind bars though?

[Indy Texas]

I think adultery should be treated as some manner of tort, personally. I don't think most of the adultery laws that are currently on the books in states that still have them are very practical or well-considered. I doubt Virginia is an exception.

Seriously?  That seems completely crazy.

In a way it already is. Usually if you're divorcing your spouse because they were unfaithful you can get something out of it, or at least better terms than if no adultery had taken place.

[Rocky Rockefeller]

While I'm not a fan of McAuliffe, I would enthusiastically vote for him to stop his nutcase opponent. 

Agreed.

Cuccinelli is truly a disgusting human being IMO.

Double Agreed.

[bedstuy]

I think adultery should be treated as some manner of tort, personally. I don't think most of the adultery laws that are currently on the books in states that still have them are very practical or well-considered. I doubt Virginia is an exception.

Seriously?  That seems completely crazy.

In a way it already is. Usually if you're divorcing your spouse because they were unfaithful you can get something out of it, or at least better terms than if no adultery had taken place.

A divorce is a stand-alone cause of action.  This is another matter entirely.  The whole case would be fairly ridiculous and generally a waste of judicial resources.

But, I looked it up on wikipedia and apparently there was a tort of adultery, called "Criminal conversation," way back when and it still exists in North Carolina.

[Rocky Rockefeller]

What Republicans need to realize is that if they want to hold on to states moving leftward like Virginia, is that they need to drop the whole "Christian Morals Should Determine the Laws" angle they been doing for so long. The Bible is NOT the Constitution.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I think adultery should be treated as some manner of tort, personally. I don't think most of the adultery laws that are currently on the books in states that still have them are very practical or well-considered. I doubt Virginia is an exception.

Seriously?  That seems completely crazy.

In a way it already is. Usually if you're divorcing your spouse because they were unfaithful you can get something out of it, or at least better terms than if no adultery had taken place.

The key difference being that one would be able to sue the person your spouse slept with.   If the state recognizes marriages, it does so because a marriage is believed to have value worth protecting by the state, so I don't see how treating adultery as a tort is such a crazy idea.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I think adultery should be treated as some manner of tort, personally. I don't think most of the adultery laws that are currently on the books in states that still have them are very practical or well-considered. I doubt Virginia is an exception.

Seriously?  That seems completely crazy.

Yeah, there is no way this could do any good.

[Vosem]

Usual reaction provoked as expected given that most of our poster see consent as the sole criterion of whether a sex act is good or bad.

...what other criterions could there be?

[DC Al Fine]

Usual reaction provoked as expected given that most of our poster see consent as the sole criterion of whether a sex act is good or bad.

...what other criterions could there be?

Public health, effect on society etc.

To use an example: I can consent to use heroin, but most of us would consider that a bad thing and support laws restricting heroin use. This doesn't necessarily mean we have to punish the user, but it does show how we can have criteria other than consent to decide if something is good or bad. Cuccinelli's suggestion of adultery laws is misguided in my opinion, but the sentiment behind it is not. Adultery, like heroin use has adverse affects on society*, and reducing it is an admirable goal.

*Though obviously not on the scale of heroin or meth addiction.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think adultery should be treated as some manner of tort, personally. I don't think most of the adultery laws that are currently on the books in states that still have them are very practical or well-considered. I doubt Virginia is an exception.

Seriously?  That seems completely crazy.

Yeah, there is no way this could do any good.

I mean, the manner of treatment as such obviously shouldn't be like criminal conversation torts of old ('It was based upon compensation for the husband's loss of property rights in his wife, the wife being regarded as his chattel'--from Wikipedia. No. This is not a good basis for anything), and if there is seen to be no expedient way around the obvious practical problems then it is better to just let things be, but in principle I think it makes more sense as a tort than either legally non-actionable or a crime.

[DemPGH]

When you tally them up, it really is astounding how it's become a hallmark of the right to think that 1) heavily regulating adult behavior is a good thing and 2) that adults do not know what is good for them, or else have no right to find out.

Of course there is a reproductive impulse at work in human beings that the state should have no concern over whatsoever so long as it's not rape, of course; nature invented human beings, human beings invented marriage. The problem is surely with our concept of marriage.

Finally, if a spouse engages in behavior that dismantles the trust and intimacy of the relationship, initiate a divorce. That's all.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I think adultery should be treated as some manner of tort, personally. I don't think most of the adultery laws that are currently on the books in states that still have them are very practical or well-considered. I doubt Virginia is an exception.

Seriously?  That seems completely crazy.

Yeah, there is no way this could do any good.

I mean, the manner of treatment as such obviously shouldn't be like criminal conversation torts of old ('It was based upon compensation for the husband's loss of property rights in his wife, the wife being regarded as his chattel'--from Wikipedia. No. This is not a good basis for anything), and if there is seen to be no expedient way around the obvious practical problems then it is better to just let things be, but in principle I think it makes more sense as a tort than either legally non-actionable or a crime.

As has been said, adultery is a ground for divorce, and often affords better divorce conditions for the "injured party". I don't see how legislation could go father than that without making painful and oppressing human situations even more painful and oppressing.

Adultery should - in most cases - carry a social stigma. This is one of the situations where it's better for the State to step out and to let society do (while trying to correct the society's biases and prejudices, of course). I would also add that I can envision some situations where adultery is, everything considered, justified. Of course, these are situations where divorce should have already occurred.

[memphis]

Government small enough to fit inside your vagina.

[opebo]

Adultery is virtually inevitable, unless the parties are really hopeless.