Rep. Byron Rushing of Suffolk’s Ninth District plans to file a number of items of legislation in the new session dealing with all manner of issues from privacy to religious freedom to CORI reform, but the one that caught our wandering eye (thanks, State House source!) dealt with reforming certain archaic laws that are still on the books.

We checked them out and we’re pretty sure that we’re good on tattoos and communism, but we’re pretty screwed on fornication, so to speak. Let’s have a look.

Section 16A. The Communist Party is hereby declared to be a subversive organization.

I have not, nor have I ever been a member of the Communist party. I have been known to take a drink or two at the People’s Republic.

Section 34. Whoever, not being registered as a qualified physician under section two of chapter one hundred and twelve, or corresponding provisions of earlier laws, marks the body of any person by means of tattooing, shall be punished by a fine of not more than three hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both.

Safe there. I don’t do ink.

Section 18. Whoever commits fornication shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than three months or by a fine of not more than thirty dollars.

Um, definitely in trouble on that one.

Chapter 272, Section 26
Resorting to restaurants or taverns for immoral purposes.

Section 26. Whoever, for the purpose of immoral solicitation or immoral bargaining, shall resort to any café, restaurant, tavern, as defined in section one of chapter one hundred and thirty-eight, or other place where food or drink is sold or served to be consumed upon the premises, and whoever shall resort to any such place for the purpose of, in any manner, inducing another person to engage in immoral conduct, and whoever, being in or about any such place, shall engage in any such acts, and any person owning, managing or controlling such place and any employee of such person who induces or knowingly suffers any person to resort to, or be in such place for the purpose of immoral solicitation or immoral bargaining, shall be punished by a fine of not less than twenty-five nor more than five hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both.

What would the Track Girls do if they enforced that one?

Section 34. Whoever commits the abominable and detestable crime against nature, either with mankind or with a beast, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than twenty years.

Little bit of wording change. As Rushing writes: By striking out the words “commits the abominable and detestable crime against nature, either with mankind or beast” and inserting in its place new language of “engages in sexual relations with a beast.” Either way, I’m cool.

Unnatural and lascivious acts.

Section 35. Whoever commits any unnatural and lascivious act with another person shall be punished by a fine of not less than one hundred nor more than one thousand dollars or by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than five years or in jail or the house of correction for not more than two and one half years.

Sodomy? Is that sodomy? Somebody get Rick Santorum on the phone. He’d know what that means. Ah (More Rushing): This bill will also repeal Section 35 of Chapter 272, which prohibits ‘unnatural and lascivious acts with another person.’ These two sections were found unconstitutional under the U.S. Supreme Court case, Lawrence v. Texas (2003). This bill will remove the two places in the General Laws where these terms are understood as “sodomy.” And there it is.

Speaking on behalf of all taxpaying commies, tattoo artists and fornicators everywhere (but not those who engage in sex with “beasts”) we think it’s high time we got these laws off the books. Thank you, Rep. Rushing.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 10:06 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Posted by Paul Flannery on 1/27/09 in Politics 3 Comments »