Marriage is Protected! Adultery is a Felony!

In our "want to be free yet want to be judgmental" society, we do some very odd things. For example, we don't want the government in our bedrooms legislating the modes of sexual activity in which we engage. On the other hands virtually every state in the nation has adopted or is in the process of adopting amendments to their state constitutions defining what marriage is and who can get married.

Marriage is one of those weird areas in life to me. It has a sense of the sacred and the secular. For many marriage must take place in a space of worship so that God might bless the union of the man and woman involved. Some denominations and especially the black church has been clear that only heterosexual unions qualify for an official blessing from God in a worship space. Meanwhile we also know that not all marriages are conducted in such spaces and that many people get married at the courthouse and some weird folks (my own judgmental moment) get married in the jailhouse.

Yet I believe that even the most ardent heterosexual supremacist, a term coined by oppressed homosexuals, have to see that it is unfair that just because the church does not advocate or support a union between two men or two women, there is an equal protection issue when the state allows men and women to get married or to unite legally without the benefit of any church sanction.

Okay what does that have to with title of this blog entry well I think big brother is losing his mind. In today's Detroit Free Press there is a story that reports that the Michigan State Court of Appeals has ruled that "any time a person engages in sexual penetration in an adulterous relationship, he or she is guilty of CSC I,(Criminal Sexual Conduct in the first degree)" the most serious sexual assault charge in Michigan's criminal code.

A long time ago and as recently as 1971 the good people of Michigan decided that adultery was not only a Biblical misconduct issue but a felonious criminal act. And while we may think the law is a draconian response the Michigan Court of Appeals is response to a Michigan Supreme Court edict is saying to lower courts that since the law literally includes adultery as a criminal offense prosecutors across the state can bring these cases to trial.

Imagine that going to jail for having a chick or a rooster on the side. Perhaps the homosexuals in Michigan ought to think twice before clamoring for marriage rights. It may sound absurd but it is the law and now married folks in Michigan can sleep a little better knowing their partners face life if they tiptoe through some other tulips.