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seretogis · 11-08-2003, 04:41 AM

Quote:

LAW OF THE LAND
Court: Homosexual sex not adultery
3-2 ruling based on traditional definition of extramarital activity
Posted: November 8, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

Married women are free to have extramarital sexual relations with
other women, says the New Hampshire Supreme Court, without being at
fault for the break-up of their marriage.

In a 3-2 ruling handed down today, the jurists decided the definition
of adultery doesn't include homosexual sex, but requires heterosexual
intercourse to have taken place.

The decision comes in a contentious divorce case.
http://www.courts.state.nh.us/suprem...3/blanc150.htm

David Blanchflower, of Hanover, N.H., originally filed for divorce
from his wife, Sian, on grounds of irreconcilable differences. He
then amended his petition, asserting his wife's "continuing
adulterous affair" with Robin Mayer, a woman from Brownsville, Vt.,
caused the irreparable breakdown of their marriage.

An "at fault" finding benefits the husband in the division of the
couple's property.

The two women attempted to block his efforts, contending a homosexual
relationship between two people, one of whom is married, does not
constitute adultery according to state divorce law.

The trial court disagreed with the women's argument and ruled in
favor of the husband, prompting Mayor to pursue the issue with the
state's high court.

In rendering their decision, the justices found the outdated law
didn't define adultery. In the absence of necessary definitions, they
explained in their opinion, they must "ascribe to them their plain
and ordinary meanings."

In other words, they looked the word up in Webster's Third New
International Dictionary and found the word defined as involving
intercourse between members of opposite genders.

The justices further relied on case law from the period during which
the 1842 divorce statute was drafted and concluded the definition of
adultery as it was applied in State v. Wallace in 1838 and State v.
Taylor in 1878 was "intercourse from which a spurious issue may
arise." They deduced that because a "spurious issue" can only arise
from intercourse between a man and a woman, "criminal adultery could
only be committed with a person of the opposite gender."

In their dissenting opinions, two justices wrote: "We respectfully
dissent because we believe that the majority's narrow construction of
the word 'adultery' contravenes the legislature's intended purpose in
sanctioning fault-based divorce for the protection of the injured
spouse. To strictly adhere to the primary definition of adultery in
the 1961 edition of Webster's Third New International Dictionary and
a corollary definition of sexual intercourse, which on its face does
not require coitus, is to avert one's eyes from the sexual realities
of our world."

Court observers agreed with the dissenters.

"I think the majority opinion is unintentionally trivializing same-
sex relations and violating modern notions of the sanctity of
marriage," Marcus Hurn, a professor at Franklin Pierce Law Center,
told the Associated Press.

A sexual relationship, whether heterosexual or homosexual, he added,
is "exactly an equivalent betrayal."

"That, I think, is the ordinary meaning most people would give," said
Hurn.

Neither David Blanchflower, his wife nor Mayer commented following
the ruling.

In an effort to thwart efforts to pull them into the burgeoning
debate over homosexual "marriage," the justices stressed the appeal
was "not about the status of homosexual relationships in our society
or the formal recognition of homosexual unions."

This is absolutely ridiculous, imho. I agree with Professor Hurn on this issue -- regardless of who the wife is sleeping around with, she is committing adultery by doing so. With a man or a woman, cheating is just as much of a betrayal.