sappho@SRI-NIC.ARPA (07/29/86)
Return-Path: <SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA> Date: Mon 21 Jul 86 16:32:08-PDT From: Lynn Gazis <SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA> Subject: sodomy laws The issue of to what extent we should pay to protect people from the consequences of their actions, while interesting, has nothing to do with sodomy laws. 1. Sodomy laws were written before AIDS. There was no reason at the time they were written to believe that gay sex cost the public money. 2. Childless gay people pay plenty of money in taxes for various kinds of assistance to children whose parents aren't able to fully support them. So it still is not reasonable to say that gay sex costs the public a disproportionate amount of money. And in fact oral sex between heterosexual couples, which is also forbidden by the Georgia law, is less likely to cost taxpayers money than regular heterosexual intercourse. 3. People who complain about gay people "causing" AIDS seem more alarmed about the possibility that gay people will then spread AIDS to "innocent" people than the financial cost. 4. Why would anyone who is concerned about gay sex costing taxpayers money want gay people put in jail where they will cost the taxpayers even more money and be just as likely to get AIDS? People pass and support laws like sodomy laws because they think it is more important for the government to enforce their morality than for people to have privacy in their bedrooms. Perhaps they also think these private sexual acts in some way harm other people's marriages and families or lead the participants to then want to go and molest children (at least, that is the impression their arguments sometimes give). Lynn Gazis sappho@sri-nic ------- -------