Well, then not only are going to a) go to hell but also b) to jail if you get caught and c) Sunshine State Republicans want to make sure that does not change.
UPDATE: There’s a poll of sorts at the Sun Sentinel, here.
What do you think of the cohabitation law?. What do you think?
- Heck yeah, we live in 2011. Who doesn’t co-habitate?
- No way, there’s a reason this is the law.
- I’m not sure.
As you can see, it is very well written and carefully thought out. Currently, “Heck” is winning.
Well, one Florida GOPer is trying to get this law and some other irrelevant legislation repealed. Like the law that says you must keep both hands on the handlebars when riding a bike. But the socially conservative wing of the party (i.e., almost all of them) are resisting.
The stupid laws, like the one against co-habitation and the one about how to ride a bike, should be enforced to the greatest extent possible, with the most stupid laws enforced first. It would not be long before they are repealed.
And I am not joking. In my home town, the county prosecutor ran for office on the promise that he’d get rid of the county wide blue laws. Of course, as a prosecutor, that was impossible (he does not make laws, only enforces them) but he kept his promise. Within days of being sworn into office he had sheriff’s deputies dragging people in for any violation of any of the blue laws, which were being ignored about half the time. The county legislative body repealed all of those laws very quickly.
So Florida Troopers need to put on their plain clothes and stand around waving at people going by on their bikes. Anybody waves back, and they’re BUSTED. Then, when you’ve got ’em in a choke hold and are slapping on the cuffs, ask them if they are cohabitating or not. And if they are, BUST ‘EM AGAIN.
Do this in a ‘nice’ neighborhood. Those laws will last two weeks, top.
Details here, at Think Progress.
By the way, the guy who is trying to get rid of these laws is Rep. Ritch Workman, R-Melbourne. His motivation is not social progressiveness, but rather, making government smaller, in part by getting rid of laws that make no sense. Of course, getting rid of laws that make so little sense that they are summarily ignored might not make much sense, but whatever…
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I suppose I might be able to find out by following the link (or I might not), but, this business of keeping both hands on the handlebar: They are talking about bicycles, not motorcycles, right? And they know about bicycle hand signals, right? So…??
Off in pursuit of the wild hyperlink now….
Bicycles. I suppose they allow for hand signals. Who knows.
Yes, and then send the cops to every university campus and middle class suburb to check for pot, triple the prison population size in one fell swoop, and we may really be getting somewhere.
Getting rid of old rules that don’t make any sense sounds pretty progressive to me. In fact that describes a lot of what atheist activists try to do. Sometimes I think “progressive” and “conservative” aren’t very well defined categories…
Anyway, a law that’s rarely followed and rarely enforced is actually dangerous – it’s an arbitrary weapon in the hands of police and prosecutors, because there’s all those people that they can theoretically arrest or ticket or whatever even if they’re not doing anything the community finds to be wrong. The DA in your story used his powers for good, but imagine if someone used a law like that to persecute some unpopular person who didn’t have the clout to get the law changed? Or even if it just “happened” that the rare enforcement of the law landed mostly on disadvantaged minorities?
Does this cover all opposite-sex domestic arrangements without marriage certificates? The thought of fornicating with my flatmate is putting me off breakfast.
Bingo, what Robert B said… I agree wholeheartedly!
It used to be against the law — a felony — in Georgia to commit “sodomy,” which included not only penetrative anal sex, but also any oral sex and analingus. It wasn’t enforced awfully much, but it was enforced sometimes. Defending it before the US Supreme Court, the state’s attorney general offered that it was and would only be enforced in cases of same-sex violations. Good news! It would be safe for heterosexual couples to venture downtown. Same behavior, different participants, and thus the law becomes a tool for persecuting minorities, and nothing more.
Fortunately, that horrible Georgia sodomy law is history, having been voided by the state’s supreme court after the federal court failed to do so. And that homophobic dirtbag that used to be the Georgia attorney general general saw his political career end amidst an adultery scandal. I’m glad the law is gone, though if it had stayed around long enough for said dirtbag politician to be caught in flagrante delicto performing the tender act on his mistress, I might have had reason to question my conclusions about the nonexistence of gods.
I’m continually amazed at the blatant hypocrisy of small-government types who nevertheless insist that it is the government’s role in society to regulate private behaviors of this kind.
There was a cohabitation law in AZ that I was violating when I was in college. If caught, I would (to this day?) be a registered sex offender. The evil Janet Napolitano signed off on the repeal of that and several other antiquated sex laws.
Oh and that poll makes no sense… I voted “Heck yeah!,” but I’m not sure if that means to keep it, or can it.
“What do YOU think?”
“Yes.”