Is There A Legal Right To A Orgy?
The municipality of Duncanville, Texas which is neighborhood of Dallas has been involved in its own small Jerry Falwell style bible strip battle with the founders of a secluded ”swinger couples club” called “The Cherry Pit“. The Cherry Pit is a private mansion tucked in away in an expensive Duncanville housing neighborhood. The Cherry Pit advertises on the internet and according to announced news draws as many as 120 members to a weekly social gathering.
The Cherry Pit has been throwing key parties where visitors pay a cost for entrance and could engage in mosly any type of sex activity they want on the location. It is the position of the owners that this does not constitute a “business” as the entrance money is to cover the cost of food, beverages etc and not a cost for the opportunity of engaging in sex from the tame to the “Pulp Fiction” apple in the mouth brand of entertainment…. It is said for an extra service charge they could even “bring out the gimp“….(just joking)
This whole bru ha ha started backin October of 2007 when after few years of Cherry Pitt neighbors complaining about the offence, parties and “unsavory element” “the pit” was bringing to the district, the City of Duncanville passed the following decree:
“the operation and maintenance of a adult to be against the law and a public annoyance. Violation of the new decree can effect in a fine of up to $3,000.”
The city of Duncanville after that decided that the parties at the Cherry Pit were more than simply a party of “friends and family” looking for some fun and resoluted that it was basically a sexually oriented business and subject to the decree. The respond of Julie Norris, one of the owners of “The Pit” was the following:
“I do not comprehend what their definition of a industry is, but to my understanding a business is public – anyone can just walk into it and you should pay to get in and we are none of that,” Norris said. “I allow gifts. Have you ever had your friends over for a booze and asked everybody to pitch in $5 or bring a plate? That is just what we do. The only requirement to get into my residence is that a person call and let me know that you are coming and you are on my reservation list.”
Ms Norris went on to state that she assumed that the ordinance is a excuse to harass their lifestyles and values and that the rule regulating the club violated their First Amendment Rights to Privacy.
“It boils down to people want to put their ethics into my personal house and I have to stand against that,” Norris said. “That is not what the Constitution allows.”
The owners of the Cherry Pit then counter sued the city claiming the order banning swingers clubs violates their seclusion and due process rights. They are mostly using the same argument under which a right to privacy was found under Roe v. Wade. They have to use this scheme in making the right to privacy argument because there is actually no right to personal privacy spelled out in the Constitution.
The Cherry Pit’s legal representative, Edward Klain, said the city is trying to regulate private acts in a private dwelling using the public irritation law as a “pretext” to do so….
The Cherry Pitt has remained open while all the official wrangling has taken place… Just now the City of Duncanville broadened the decree meant to shut the club down by making the definition of a swinger club more broad and add a local plea process for sex clubs that the city orders to close.
***October 29, 2008 A jury found the owners of the Cherry Pit accountable of unlawfully operating a sexually oriented company.
So what do you think? Should private citizens be tolerated to “swap pits” at the Pitt without the government getting its’ rocks off?
You evidently can’t do cocaine in the seclusion of your home. These things are illegal regardless of where they are engaged in.
Let us also keep this in mind. Duncanville is NOT trying to order the Texas TX swingers showing up at the venue. They are trying to order the owners of the home in encouraging the “Piters” to engage in sex for a fee at their home…. The state is NOT regulating where and with whom you can have sex with. They are telling the owners of the Pit that if they are charging you to do it, they are subject to state administration. There is a big dissimilarity…
Nobody is going to advice you that you cant go down to your neighborhood red light block and get a BJ from Mollie the local crack addict or Jimmy the cross dressing pimp or even take any of sexo de parejas to the Cherry Pit for some entertainment. We surely know nonetheless that the act of handing over a dollar in trade for the blowjob makes the otherwise consenting action illegal prostitution on one end and the illegal action of soliciting a prostitute on the other end no matter where it happens (in addition to whatever other disgusting action goes with “the other end”). The state has decided that there is a forceful state concern to adjust and/or criminalize such acts…
***October 29, 2008 A jury found the owner of the Cherry Pit guilty on 10 counts of running a sexually oriented commerce. The Cherry Pit has since been closed. While advise for the owners declared that the decree would be appealed and the statute challenged, it is unclear if either of those was ever pursued.