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Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Orgies R Us
The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that two Quebec swingers' clubs did not breach decency standards when they allowed group sex to take place on their premises. The reasoning: orgies do not cause harm to society. And thus the Great Canadian Social Experiment Expedition goes one big step deeper into the swamp.
Posted by Terry O'Neill on December 21, 2005 in Current Affairs | Permalink
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Comments
Well, on the bright side it will create the precident to allow our private gun clubs to continue unabated, right? Right? Right?
In reality, the government got it all wrong. If they wanted to ban private swinger clubs, all they had to do was take to court a club that insisted on its members all being heterosexual. The courts would have closed that sucker down before you could say "exit only".
Posted by: Feynman and Coulter's Love Child | 2005-12-21 10:15:16 AM
The real trouble is that something done consensually in private is being subjected to law at all.
Are we against government interfering with your pocketbook, but in favour of it intruding on your personal life?
Posted by: dr_dog | 2005-12-21 10:51:26 AM
I'm with Dr. Dog. The State has no more business shutting down those swinger clubs than the filming of a porn movie.
There's much, much, much more important things to talk about than a few Quebecois who aren't confident enough with themselves to maintain monogomous relationships!
Posted by: Charlotte | 2005-12-21 11:36:25 AM
I'm with Dr Dog on this one.
We're the small-state people. The state has no right infringing on what people do on their own private property. I'm all for dismantling as much government as possible.
And as for hypocrisy Robert, it's funny that the Liberal supreme court says you can sodomize each other in a private club to your heart's content but you can't light up a cigar... I can think of a shrink who would be either amused or confused.
Posted by: Warwick | 2005-12-21 11:39:50 AM
Share-a-lot wrote:
"There's much, much, much more important things to talk about than a few Quebecois who aren't confident enough with themselves to maintain monogomous relationships!"
Not if you view "monogamy" as being yet another Charter-offending aspect of traditional "marriage". What say you, Robberd? - Are the swingers of the country as entitled to reshape the fabric of the society with the Charred Turd scalpel as were those poor marginalized gay folk like Elton and Dave?
Posted by: Great Walls of Fire | 2005-12-21 11:46:29 AM
I too am with dr_dog. As scuzzy as their hobby may be, if it's done on private property with no harm to anyone else the state shouldn't be involved. The court should have tossed the case on first glance.
Posted by: JR | 2005-12-21 1:29:55 PM
Your sadness sounds an awful lot like glee, Rob't.
Posted by: rick mcginnis | 2005-12-21 2:19:07 PM
How could anyone think that this is harmless entertainment? This perverted behaviour has terrible social costs on Canadian families and individuals, and there are financial costs when people get diseases and come to the health system for expensive treatment.
Has anyone heard of Sexually Transmitted Diseases? I'm not an expert but I suspect they get transmitted very effectively by people having sex with lots of other people. I somehow doubt that everyone is using condoms. (and even if they were, condoms do not provide 100% protection.) I also doubt that when they go and have sex with other people they tell them that they just had sex with ten other people they didn't really know much about the night before.
That our Supreme Court would let these depraved clubs stay open is a sad commentary on where Canada is at.
Posted by: timmyz | 2005-12-21 2:35:21 PM
Hate, Robert?
I believe I said people ought to be able to be free to do what they please. There's no hate there. After all, it's not like I was spray painting hate propaganda on someone else's wall, eh Robert? That would be your gig.
Swingers, sodomists, any combo of the above. If you're doing it in a private place, the state has no business in it.
My point (since you missed it) is that the court (correctly) concluded that they have no business regulating sex in a private place. But they have no problem with regulating just about everything else from smoking to drinking to requiring you to view only state-sanctioned, CRTC approved tv, to even the minor stuff like requiring where in a house to put the thermostat. The state wants to regulate everything in Trudeaupia - EXCEPT sex.
I say get the government out of everything.
Posted by: Warwick | 2005-12-21 2:49:56 PM
Come on people get real, this already goes on in Holland, and Holland is a great country. Right? I mean so Holland euthanizes their people but their a burden on society. Right? I mean so Holland encourages parents to kill or abort(whichever term you choose to use) babies but those babies could have terrible diseases. Right? I mean who really wants a society that actually believes in a God who will judge all wickedness? Who wants a society that has to take responsibility for their own actions? Consience? Wasn't he some greek god? Do we honestly believe that men watching this will go out totally elated and try to get some more on some innocent woman? This will do no damage to our society what so ever. Toying with, and encouraging multible sex couples only creates many diseases, and breaks down famlies, and causes divorce, and leaves our children raised by single parents. Is it really that bad?
Posted by: DAVE VANKESTEREN JR | 2005-12-21 4:14:12 PM
"Neither one person, nor any number of persons, is warranted in saying to another human creature of ripe years that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what he chooses to do with it. All errors he is likely to commit against advice and warning are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to do what they deem his good." --John Stuart Mill
Posted by: Vitruvius | 2005-12-21 4:27:54 PM
You said it VanKesteren.
In fact, we should get the government to start arranging our monogamous marriages for us! That way we, as a society, can ensure that there is no marital breakdowns.
Oh, and missionary position only - by law - anything else is simply deviant and leads to societal breakdown.
Posted by: bob | 2005-12-21 4:33:09 PM
Great Walls, I'm not sure why you referred to me as "Share-a-lot", please exlain.
Posted by: Charlotte | 2005-12-21 5:58:00 PM
There are a lot of Canadians who are crying foul over this Gomorra report.
read and see it here ..
http://tinyurl.com/7bu49
Posted by: Duke | 2005-12-21 6:03:29 PM
The next step in building the Great Society - legal group sex clubs! And just in time for Christmas! Congratulations, Canada. How progressive!
Posted by: NCF TO | 2005-12-21 8:58:34 PM
I think Warwick is right on this. I can't light a cigarette at a bar but if I wanted to do a bag of coke in the bathroom before jumping some people on a stage - no problem. The state picks and chooses the activities it sanctions - it's called social engineering and we should all be against it.
Posted by: Michael Dabioch | 2005-12-21 8:58:53 PM
Attention, Libertarians: some things are simply right, and some things are simply wrong. It's called common sense. Get some! And if you can't figure out how group sex clubs are harmful to others, you are simply blinded by an empty, soulless ideology.
Posted by: NCF TO | 2005-12-21 9:22:50 PM
So enlighen me, NCF TO, in what way, exactly, are private group sex clubs harmful to me and others?
Posted by: Johan i Kanada | 2005-12-21 10:09:54 PM
Attention, NCF TO: Everyone agrees that some things are right, and some things are wrong. The problem that thinking humans have been working on since the dawn of civilization is: which are which? Here's a longer quote from John Stuart Mill that highlights some of the issues people have been thinking about:
"No one's idea of excellence in conduct is that people should do absolutely nothing but copy one another. No one would assert that people ought not to put into their mode of life, and into the conduct of their concerns, any impress whatever of their own judgment, or of their own individual character.
"On the other hand, it would be absurd to pretend that people ought to live as if nothing whatever had been known in the world before they came into it; as if experience had as yet done nothing towards showing that one mode of existence, or of conduct, is preferable to another. Nobody denies that people should be so taught and trained in youth, as to know and benefit by the ascertained results of human experience.
"But it is the privilege and proper condition of a human being, arrived at the maturity of his faculties, to use and interpret experience in his own way. It is for him to find out what part of recorded experience is properly applicable to his own circumstances and character.
"The traditions and customs of other people are, to a certain extent, evidence of what their experience has taught them; presumptive evidence, and as such, have a claim to his deference: but, in the first place, their experience may be too narrow; or they may not have interpreted it rightly. Secondly, their interpretation of experience may be correct, but unsuitable to him. Customs are made for customary circumstances, and customary characters; and his circumstances or his character may be uncustomary. Thirdly, though the customs be both good as customs, and suitable to him, yet to conform to custom, merely as custom, does not educate or develope in him any of the qualities which are the distinctive endowment of a human being.
"The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what is best.
[...]
"It will probably be conceded that it is desirable people should exercise their understandings, and that an intelligent following of custom, or even occasionally an intelligent deviation from custom, is better than a blind and simply mechanical adhesion to it. To a certain extent it is admitted, that our understanding should be our own: but there is not the same willingness to admit that our desires and impulses should be our own likewise; or that to possess impulses of our own, and of any strength, is anything but a peril and a snare.
"Yet desires and impulses are as much a part of a perfect human being, as beliefs and restraints: and strong impulses are only perilous when not properly balanced; when one set of aims and inclinations is developed into strength, while others, which ought to co-exist with them, remain weak and inactive. It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.
[...]
"The means of development which the individual loses by being prevented from gratifying his inclinations to the injury of others, are chiefly obtained at the expense of the development of other people. And even to himself there is a full equivalent in the better development of the social part of his nature, rendered possible by the restraint put upon the selfish part. To be held to rigid rules of justice for the sake of others, developes the feelings and capacities which have the good of others for their object.
"But to be restrained in things not affecting their good, by their mere displeasure, developes nothing valuable, except such force of character as may unfold itself in resisting the restraint. If acquiesced in, it dulls and blunts the whole nature. To give any fair play to the nature of each, it is essential that different persons should be allowed to lead different lives.
"In proportion as this latitude has been exercised in any age, has that age been noteworthy to posterity. Even despotism does not produce its worst effects, so long as individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.
[ End of quote from John Stuart Mill. ]
Posted by: Vitruvius | 2005-12-22 12:13:45 AM
I'm siding with Bob on this one - the government has no business in people's bedrooms. As for the God stuff, I haven't heard any compelling arguments as to why the good book (which I don't read) and a God (who I don't believe in) should decide what's acceptable behaviour in my life.
I suppose I risk the chance of going to hell for being so candid, but I'll roll the dice on that one. Until then, I'll continue my search for the annswer as to why God built the earth with dinosaur bones in it.
Posted by: Scott | 2005-12-22 12:24:35 AM
Wow. No one really is getting the significance of this ruling in these comments. Further, the people that think the court is correct in this decision ought to read the dissent in Lawrence v. Texas.
The real big issue, in my opinion, is the continuing neo-natural law jurisprudence of this Court. This neo-natural law jurispudence evidently appears to focus more on good sounding slogans than law. "Consensual conduct behind code-locked doors can hardly be supposed to jeopardize a society as vigorous and tolerant as Canadian society," says McLachlin. Essentially, the Court has baptized the harm principle.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS RULING IS THUS: Logically, these sexual decisions based on consent will lead into economic decisions between people based on consent. Look at McLachlin's formulae to test whether or not state interference is unjust or not. I have been saying for years that this type of sexual liberation in society is really bad news for government. Not only do they lose their right to legislate for the public good (morality). But they may also lose their economic right to intrude on its citizens.
For example, I cannot set up a gambling operation in my house. I need a license from the state. But why would I need to under the logic of these sexual liberation cases? If consent without harm=permissable without state interference, the government requirement of a license ought to be nulled unconstitutional and void. Heck, the concept of "taxes" is an implicit interference upon two or more private consenting individuals.
Since a situation where the Court rules taxes unconstitutional based on the firewall of consent is absurd, so must this decision be. And thus, the signficance of this case is not a drawback of public morality, but of a dangerous road of precedent being developed.
Posted by: Jonathan | 2005-12-22 1:00:18 AM
I certainly do not see why I should have to get a license from the state to run a business, as long as I am not interfering with my neighbours enjoyment of their property. I think that economic decisions between people should be based on consent. The state has no economic right to intrude on its citizens.
I just don't see how this case relates to public morals (which I'm in favour of), this is a matter of private behaviour on private property.
Posted by: Vitruvius | 2005-12-22 3:42:14 AM
Perhaps now we know the naket truth what Canada's Supreme Court Judges do together at their closed meetings.
Posted by: Larry | 2005-12-22 4:35:48 AM
I've been involved in a rather long discussion of this over at
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=3183
At this point I guess I'd have to say that to the degree that this decision leads to freedom of consenting adult behaviour for people otherwise so inclined to swing (is that term correct?) then that's a good thing. But to the degree that this leads to popular commercialization of sex as a product, then that's a bad thing.
How's that for a pragmatic libertarian? At this point I'd make a joke about splitting hares, but that would lead me to thinking about rabbit stifado, and I'm too tired to eat. It's time to sleep.
Merry Christmas Everyone
Peace on Earth and Goodwill Toward All
Posted by: Vitruvius | 2005-12-22 4:40:32 AM
This is not about private citizens in the privacy of their bedroms. These cases came to court because they involved public places as defined by the anti-smoking legislation. There was a proprietor and customers. The people who frequented these two places paid for the priveledge.
Posted by: rebarbarian | 2005-12-22 5:12:53 AM
Those who campaign for unfettered sexual freedoms all the way to the Supreme court aren't usually petitioning for the right to commit lascivious acts in their bedrooms -- because who'd know, really? -- but for the right to engage in some sort of sex-related enterprise or other in some ancestral homeland called "private property".
But we all know that a football stadium, for example, is a public place, and that a bedroom in a building owned by someone else is the private space of it's inhabitant. As soon as the exercise of one's right to freedom of sexual expression requires a business license and exchanges of cash, it's not unreasonable for the community to address crime and public health issues.
The way I look at it, the guy nodding desperately nodding double-time over the purple maracas while his wife does the merengue isn't losing any sleep over this one way or another, so why don't we join him in spirit by not over-dramatizing quotidian public health issues, and by not making the right to avoid all community health standards a charter issue.
The Maracas thing, by the way, I threw in for the sake of levity, not to further any agreement.
Posted by: EBD | 2005-12-22 5:20:45 AM
I'm driving on a two lane highway and someone decides it's his right to drive towards me in my lane. I've been taught to drive on the right side of the road. It's the law, it makes for good flow of traffic. Sometimes things have to be legislated for the simple reason that we all need to go in the same direction. It shouldn't be up to me to get out of the way...but I guess it would be smart for self preservation. I'm tired of a small minority emboldened by a corrupt Supreme Court (an extension of the corrupt Liberal gov't. and ideology) telling me to get off the road.
Posted by: bliss is ignorant | 2005-12-22 6:42:59 AM
I'm all for the courts and police and legislature staying out of people's homes AND businesses. If someone catches a nasty disease at a commercial orgy, let them sue for damages.
But what I can't help noticing about our western civilization (sic) and about the jurisdiction of Quebec in particular, is that the political dialog is about freedom but not responsibility. Except for the responsibility to pay for other people's supposed freedoms.
Of course it would be a disaster if everyone was patronizing bathhouses and orgy-domes, and smoking dope, and driving on the left side of the road. But why wouldn't they? They get free health care and welfare no matter how little they do to take care of themselves, and they can escape any financial consequences of bad behavior through bankruptcy laws. If they don't feel like going through bankruptcy, they and whatever group of irresponsible misfits to which they belong can always organize themselves into a "disadvantaged minority group" and get special legislation passed to not only have their intrusion on other people's freedoms tolerated, but subsidized.
First thing you have to do, is get yourself straight on what belongs to you, and to no one else. That would be your life, your liberty, and your property. The fact that these things belong to you means that other people's life, liberty and property do not belong to you, and neither of you has the right to intrude on the other's fundamental rights. For example, you do not own the other person's body; you are not responsible for the other person's body; therefore it is immoral to force you to pay for the other person's health care, and it is immoral for you to seek to use the police and courts to "save" the other person's body.
Whenever something is turned into public property, that public property is almost always corrupted and wasted. This is called the Tragedy of the Commons. Socialized health care turns everyone's body into public property, and that is why so many people act so irresponsibly with their bodies. City streets and parks are public property and that is why they are so often full of beggars, thieves and prostitutes. The money in your pocket is considered to be public property, which is why most of it is wasted and stolen.
Whether you believe in God, Karma or Darwin, you can't help thinking that as long as people are unclear on what belongs to them and what does not, things are probably going to get worse.
Posted by: Justzumgai | 2005-12-22 7:35:17 AM
Justzumgai, you're a true libertarian.
To sum, do what you want but pay for it yourself.
I would like to see as much government as possible dismantled and eliminated.
Think of the stuff that government is supposed to do: pave the roads, police, courts, military, sewers.
Now how many of those things have the government been doing adequately? None. The government is too busy stealing the money, paying off scummy voters who think they're entitled to the benefits of other people's hard work (which is what taxation takes away,) social engineering and other things the government has no business in.
The social welfare state is injustice, theft and oppression. Big government is tyranny against people who are responsible and work and pay their way for the benefit of the stupid, lazy, irresponsible people with no sense of duty, integrity or morals.
Gas the state, lower taxes, make people earn their keep. Get the state out of our bedrooms AND our wallets.
Pave our streets then defend them. Nothing else.
Posted by: Warwick | 2005-12-22 9:10:09 AM
Justzumgai, you're a true libertarian.
To sum, do what you want but pay for it yourself.
I would like to see as much government as possible dismantled and eliminated.
Think of the stuff that government is supposed to do: pave the roads, police, courts, military, sewers.
Now how many of those things have the government been doing adequately? None. The government is too busy stealing the money, paying off scummy voters who think they're entitled to the benefits of other people's hard work (which is what taxation takes away,) social engineering and other things the government has no business in.
The social welfare state is injustice, theft and oppression. Big government is tyranny against people who are responsible and work and pay their way for the benefit of the stupid, lazy, irresponsible people with no sense of duty, integrity or morals.
Gas the state, lower taxes, make people earn their keep. Get the state out of our bedrooms AND our wallets.
Pave our streets then defend them. Nothing else.
Posted by: Warwick | 2005-12-22 9:11:41 AM
LOL
Sorry but whenever I read most of your comments on here I imagine them said by those two old curmudgeonly Muppets who sat up in the opera seats and grumbled away.
"Grumble, grumble, homos...grumble, grumble, sex...grumble, grumble, welfare...grumble."
My fav post was this, "Further, the people that think the court is correct in this decision ought to read the dissent in Lawrence v. Texas."
Most Canadian lawyers and judges (on the left AND right) laughed their asses off at the dissenting argument in Lawrence v. Texas (I can personally name almost a dozen of them). It's probably an international joke at this point - taken seriously only by ShotDumb regulars.
Posted by: justin | 2005-12-22 11:36:07 AM
Hey nice new graphics and format for the blog. Too bad the same nutters are still posting.
People have been having group sex since the beginning of time. The rapture is no closer today then it was yesterday. It may not be my idea of moral behavior, but they aren't hurting anyone that doesn't want to participate.
Posted by: Gamblog | 2005-12-22 3:42:03 PM
Justin, so what if they laughed at Scalia's dissent in Lawrence v. Texas? They are likely blinded by their ideology.
Legally speaking, why is the dissent unsound? Show me. It was merely a holding in precedent - hardly something in the realm of laughable.
Posted by: Jonathan | 2005-12-22 5:47:16 PM
Thank God for Colby Cosh.
http://www.colbycosh.com/#scgx
Posted by: Mark Wickens | 2005-12-23 6:59:34 AM
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