"The punishment of a two-year jail term is not excessive when comparing it to responsibility."
So said the South Korean court to Ok So-ri -- okay, sorry -- a famous -- and married -- actress, who had an affair with a famous pop singer. She relied, unsuccessfully on a right of "sexual self-determination and privacy."
November 27, 2008
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20 comments:
The real issue here is that she humiliated Korean manhood by having her affair with a foreigner. If she had been dorking another Korean, it never would have gone this far.
Bingo
(1) Society still recognizes that adultery damages social order.
When my brother and sisters and I were growing up, my mother and my father both would have strenuously agreed with that statement. And yet, they each committed many infidelities over the course of their seventeen year marriage. Go figure.
(2) I’m hard-pressed to see how it is unjust for a government to enforce the terms and conditions of its grant of license, issues of selective prosecution notwithstanding.
To clarify, the actress supposedly had two boyfriends - a Korean singer and an Italian chef. The foreigner angle made the scandal a lot jucier for the Korean press and made the adultress appear particularly unsymathetic.
More on the whole sordid story here:
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2008/11/27/prosecutors-demand-jail-for-ok-so-ri/
This is kind of funny, since there hasn't yet been born a Korean guy who didn't cheat on his wife.
U.S. law still criminalizes adultery as well - see article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And yes, people are still prosecuted and sent to prison for it.
Tim -- In light of recent Supreme Court case law, I wonder if that law is still enforceable, as norms seem to have evolved.
Actually, they are right. Adultery does incalculable damage to the social order and the repercussions for can last a lifetime. There are time when I think a jail sentence would help the victims heal more quickly. Imagine being told to just "get over it" if you, your mother/father, or your spouse was murdered/raped.
Alas, it's completely unenforceable except on the most random basis. But then, so are the drug laws and they still have those. They should be consistent at least. Get rid of them both or have them both.
Seven - I've wondered the same thing in light of Lawrence V. Texas, but sodomy (including oral sex between hetero married couples) continues to be illegal under Article 125 of the UCMJ. I believe there have been challenges to this at the Court of Military Appeals, but none have been upheld.
An interesting theoretical wrinkle is that this case law applies not only to uniformed servicemembers, but to civilians under the legal authority of the military...for example, reporters embedded with the military in Iraq or Afghanistan, or USO entertainers in a war zone.
Tim -- I disagree with the evolving-standards case. Off the top of my head, the difference can be explained by the need for morale in the military (adultery) and the need to prevent transmission of disease (sodomy).
I think even people who really like sodomy would have to agree that it is an excellent vehicle for disease transmission.
You can have my sodomy when you pry it from my cold, dead ass. Or hers.
Or our mouths.
But (and this is a big but ... mmmm a big juicy butt) In order to pry it out you will have to stick something in thereby committing sodomy yourself and breaking the law to enforce it. Shades of Title 18 U.S.C. § 201(c)(2).
So the bigger story here is Korean racism not adultery.
Eric said...
This is kind of funny, since there hasn't yet been born a Korean guy who didn't cheat on his wife.
12:02 PM
And you know this how? Man, racism all over the place...
Yeah whatever. Spend lots of time with Korea-born men and get back to me. While you're at it see if you can figure out the difference between culture and race.
Here in America, folks like to point to steady implosion of nations like Sweden and the Netherlands as evidence of what happens when society stops defending traditional marriage.
Nations like South Korea (which has a catastrophically low birthrate despite the enforcement of anti-gay and pro-marriage laws) serve as interesting counterpoints.
I've never heard low birthrate tied to a refusal to protect traditional marriage.
I've never heard low birthrate tied to a refusal to protect traditional marriage.
I've seen it mentioned quite a few times over at National Review.
Tim & Seven Machos,
Adultery is still enforceable under the UCMJ. It is charged as an offense. Also, it is charged as "failure to obey an order" and "conduct unbecoming" offenses.
It is actually a very common charge. It is usually charged when a ranking member commits adultery with a junior member or the spouse of a junior member. It is not usually prosecuted on moral grounds. The charge is generally acted upon when the member's acts harms the good order and discipline of a unit or command.
I am an officer in a Military Police unit.
I think we should enforce adultery laws with prison sentances.
But only on gay people after we have gay marriages.
They want it, they are going to get it.
Tim -- I disagree with the evolving-standards case. Off the top of my head, the difference can be explained by the need for morale in the military (adultery) and the need to prevent transmission of disease (sodomy).
Actually, most sodomy laws (including the ones at issue in both Bowers and Hardwick) cover not only anal sex between persons of the same sex but also oral sex between persons of the opposite sex. Although the way the law in Bowers was written it prohibited oral and anal sex between two men or between a man and a woman but was completely silent on sex between two women.
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