( - promoted by Dean Barker)
But, not much longer, if Representatives Horrigan, D-Durham, and McGuire, R-Epsom can get the Legislature to approve the bill they have filed to repeal the criminal statute. The Associated Press story has been picked up coast to coast and border to border. So, in an effort to avoid repetition, let me suggest a slightly different perspective on what's appropriate for the coercive powers of the state to address and what not. |
| The early history of Newmarket, New Hampshire is instructive, because it was there that the combination of religious and secular authority was well tested in the years leading up to the Constitutional Convention. From its very beginnings, officials of the town were not only responsible for providing a stipend (for which the residents were taxed) to the minister of the parish, but, when the latter's behavior became erratic, they (under the leadership of Wentworth Cheswill) were tasked with rendering a decision that he be removed. This turned out to be such a tedious and time-consuming process that, in addition to the controversy occasioned by the demands from new sectarian groups that taxes be dedicated to ministers of their own choosing, it led to a general consensus to separate the religious from the secular.
You could say this is the first example of public servants getting rid of onerous responsibilities and the directly affected bodies (in this case, the churches) seeing it somewhat differently--i.e. that the establishments of religion were freed from supervision, while the use of force would still be available to coerce recalcitrant individuals. And the criminalization of sexual relations without benefit of religious sanction is just one remnant of that pattern.
However, there's an underlying and persistent attitude which is much more pervasive--i.e. the assumption that voluntary associations of all kinds (clubs, professional organizations, commercial and industrial corporations, and eleemosynary institutions) are self-regulating and free to do what they want, while the behavior of the independent person is automatically suspect. That's what, I would argue, accounts for the difficulty we continue to encounter in asserting the primacy of individual rights.
It's a bit ironic that man's God-given rights, which the Constitution is designed to uphold and protect, are perceived to be in conflict with the interests of establishments of religion--i.e. the ostensible promulgators of His message. One suspects that delivering messages is, like public service, not nearly as satisfying as getting people to obey somebody's orders.
Even lip-service to regulations that nobody can be bothered to enforce is better than nothing. Which is why the crime of adultery is still on the books in New Hampshire. |
