Not All Sins Are Crimes

Like most Islamic states, some states in America use criminal penalties to police the morality of their citizens.

A recent attempt in Virginia to decriminalize adultery by reducing it from a criminal issue to a civil one has failed. According to the Code of Virginia, Title 18.2, “Crimes and Offenses Generally,” Chapter 8, “Crimes Involving Morals And Decency,” §18.2-365, “Adultery defined; penalty”:

Any person, being married, who voluntarily shall have sexual intercourse with any person not his or her spouse shall be guilty of adultery, punishable as a Class 4 misdemeanor.

A Class 4 misdemeanor is the lowest-level criminal offense in Virginia, and has a maximum punishment of a $250 fine.

Virginia senator Scott Surovell, a Democrat from Fairfax County, has been trying for years to get rid of his state’s anachronistic adultery law. “Clearly, Virginia is outside the mainstream on this,” he said. “The law is hardly ever that prohibit and prosecute the non-crimes of adultery and fornication are impossible to reconcile with a limited government.

Seventh, laws that prohibit and prosecute the non-crimes of adultery and fornication are also impossible to reconcile with a free society. In a free society, behavior that some consider to be immoral, unsafe, addictive, unhealthy, risky, sinful, or destructive is neither the government’s business nor the business of puritanical busybodies. In a free society, there is no such thing as nebulous crimes against nature, society, the family, the institution of marriage, or the state. Every crime would have a tangible and identifiable victim.

Eighth, Christian morality crusaders are woefully inconsistent. They would never call for all sins in the Bible to be crimes, just the ones they themselves don’t commit, or at least no one knows about. What about the “seven deadly sins” of wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony—should they be crimes as well? Why not? If all sins were crimes, then everyone would sure be in trouble, including Christians.

Ninth, from a theological perspective, there is no warrant in the New Testament for Christians to support laws against adultery and fornication. This is because there is no support in the New Testament for the idea that Christians should seek legislation to criminalize any victimless crimes. It is not the purpose of Christianity to change society outwardly; it is the purpose of Christianity to change individuals inwardly.

And finally, religious people in particular make a grave mistake when they look to the state to enforce morality. The actions of the state are generally the greatest examples of immoral behavior that one could ever think of—and on a grand scale. It is not even the purpose of religion to use force or the threat of force to keep people from sinning. A government with the power to outlaw immoral practices is a government with the power to ban any practice.

I have deliberately been brief. This is because I am not saying anything that I haven’t already said in more detail in my articles on victimless crimes, including my articles on gambling, and especially my many articles on the evils of the drug war.

There is a huge difference between opposition to adultery and fornication and opposition to laws against these things. Don’t ever make the mistake of confounding the two.

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