Unconstitutional Laws And Minority Rights

by Laura Goodwin

Saturday July 8th, 2000 Attleboro MA police charged Stefany Reed of Manhattan - a 38-year-old vice president of an Internet cosmetics company - with assault and battery. Her "crime"? Spanking a willing woman with a wooden spatula at a BDSM party. There had been no complaints: not from the neighbors, nor from the "victim". The police happened upon the party in progress while investigating a totally unrelated matter, and they broke up the party, confiscated everyone's toys, and arrested the organizer of the party and poor Ms. Reed.

No meaningful distinction between consensual BDSM play and assault/battery is drawn now in Massachusetts. The law which was invoked against Ms. Reed is unconstitutional, and is clearly a discriminatory law designed to be used against the BDSM erotic minority. We must fight to have the law removed, and to have persons wrongfully harmed by its enforcement pardoned.

Too bad if people hate the fact that BDSM people exist. I hate the KKK marching in the streets but I have to tolerate them, because people's rights for getting together for unpopular activities, and advocating for minority views, are protected under U.S. law. I demand the same tolerance and protection for my people, like us or not.

The people are the state, and who are the people? We ALL are, and that includes everybody. And we the people say, "Think what you like, but watch what you do." Joe Blow can hate me as much as he likes as long as he plays by the rules and respects my right to exist.

Many people who hate BDSM people and other erotic minorities nevertheless tolerate them as long as they don't get out of line. For the most part, like it or not, they have to. Few vanillas hate gays or kinkos enough to put down the remote, haul their lazy butts out of the sofa, and hit the streets to risk confrontation and possible arrest, but that doesn't mean they don't wish we would just not exist, either. We can't depend on them to defend our rights, we have to do it for ourselves.

We the people have laws everyone is supposed to abide by, and you are supposed to respect them, even if you don't like them. Work to change them if you like, but in the meantime color within the lines. There is no law in the civilized world which legitimates the vigilante intimidation and slaughter of sexual minorities, even if certain oddball religious sects uphold such ideas. The constitutional separation of church and state makes it possible to uphold the rights of people who don't go to my church, or to any church.

I don't personally believe that sodomy is a sin, and you can't officially make me act as if I do. You can make sodomy illegal though, with a majority vote. It's also legal for me to work to make that misbegotten law declared unconstitutional and therefore null, provided I follow proper procedures.

If the state won't allow any religion to perform human sacrifice rituals, then it should also limit religiously motivated laws against sexual practices. If I am not a member of your church, then your church should have reasonable, legal limits imposed on how much influence they can exert on me, no matter how many people you can flog to the polls. The tyranny of the majority is something the authors of the Constitution tried to guard against.

It's not necessary to convince the majority who already enjoy every possible advantage that it's somehow to their benefit to tolerate minorities whom they disagree with. We already have laws which are designed to protect minorities from majority abuse, but you have to invoke them. You have to demonstrate, you have to write letters, you have to complain and refuse to go away until satisfaction which is promised under law is obtained. You also have to remain alert to attempts by the majority to dilute the laws, or to economically gut the programs which exist to protect us.

When you see an "Action Alert" I pray you will get involved. Every voice raised in favor of sexual and minority rights, and against those who would deprive us of our rights, matters.

This essay and all site contents Copyright L. Goodwin 1990 -2001