West Bend Daily News AUG 1 1979 Move to ease 'moral code' faces fight from citizen group By JOAN GROSZ News Staff Writer R. Charles Weier, a West Bend anti-smut activist and associate chairman of a state-wide, pro-morality association, is urging people opposed to weakening of the state's "moral code" to at- tend a Madison hearing Thursday. The code deals with crimes against sexual morality, and the hearing is on Assembly Bill 514, which would legalize some of those activities. The bill "would weaken or repeal and re-create in a weakened form, some of the crimes involving sexual ac- tivities between consenting adults," Weier wrote in a The bill would not affect laws against adultery and prostitution or those pro- hibiting sex with children or animals, according to Dan Curd, legislative aide to one of the bill's sponsors, Rep. David Clarenbach Madison Democrat. a Curd said Tuesday the bill would not affect the cohabitation law either, although a bill to be introduc- ed in the Senate would repeal the prohibition on cohabita- tion. Curd pointed out that a number of states are moving in this direction. "The state doesn't have any place in people's bed- rooms, determining what they do or don't do as long as they do it of their own free will. "This isn't a question of morality," Curd continued. He added that rarely are such laws enforced; when they are, it is usually in a discriminatory way. He cited a Milwaukee case involving a female police officer who was having an affair with a male police officer. The hearing on the bill, which Curd said has a long and varied list of supporters, will be before the Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety. It will be at 1:30 p.m. in Room 314 NW of the state capital. --- Bill to legalize sex outside marriage draws protests MADISON Because "the government has no business in the bedrooms of this state," laws prohibiting private sex acts between consenting adults should be abolished, Rep. Da- vid Clarenbach (D-Madison) told the assembly criminal jus- tice and public safety com- mittee. He was defending his propo- sal, (AB 514), to legalize all sex acts that do not take place in public, are not performed for anything of value, and do not involve a minor. He claimed that the National Federation of Priests' Councils, the National Council of Churches, and the League of Women Voters, among others, have endorsed the legislation. "It has been said that 95 per- cent of our sexually active cit- izens are in violation of the present statutes," Clarenbach related, "and the other 5 per- cent have no imagination. The general public knows there is nothing wrong in an act of love, except that their state prohibits it." Rev. Richard Pritchard of Madison, who represented Peo- ple Using Legislation Legally (PULL), said that while "in- tercourse between consenting nonmarried adults is quite prevalent," it should not nec- essarily be made legal. There are often larger considera- tions. "I can remember the battle many years ago against cock- fighting and bear baiting; we could all see that it was doing something to destroy the char- acter and quality of the per- sons who participated. Sim- ilarly, if someone were to con- sent to commit suicide on stage legalize homosexual as well as heterosexual acts, Setzler said that, "though several texts in the Bible individually condemn homosexuality, the whole Bible stresses the worth of all per- sons. Jesus' primary message I was that of love. Homosexual affection can be as selfless as heterosexual affection." Father Schervish, who noted that he was not representing the Catholic Church, main- tained that the central issue I was the relation between law and morality. "The question is whether the state continues to find it in the interest of the social good to insist on proscribing particular sexual practices about which the community no longer en- joys a consensus, and which reflective religious thinkers including many Catholic theo- logians-do not find offensive," he said. - Laws that are not regularly enforced, he added, may be- came arbitrarily enforced, and laws that are not deemed worthy of enforcement under- mine respect for the law. The costs of the present legislation outweigh the benefits, he said, because of the laws' potential use as a tool of harassment. "It is time for the churches to cease turning to the state to provide a moral authority which the churches are too weak to elicit themselves," he concluded. Mrs. Stuart Locklin of Apple- ton, also representing PULL, noted that "Sex is a special function, of love, but there can be love without sex, and sex without love. To be against a misuse of sex is not to be as part of a publicity produc- against love: in fact, it is to tion, this would not be allowed. The law must take into ac- count the greater good." "Pritchard added that he had contacted the groups Claren- bach claimed supported his leg islation, and found that none of them had explicitly endorsed the proposal. Supporting the measure were Rev. Joyce Setzler of Prairie du Sac, a Methodist, and Fr. Paul Schervish of Madison, a Jesuit. defend it." Many people suffer when sex takes place outside of mar- riage, she said: parents of teenagers, children, the be- trayed husband or wife. The purpose of the present law is to reach for the ideal, she said, and young people should be taught that this is the standard of society. To say that these laws should be repealed, Locklin added, would be to say that the acts Noting that the bill would they prohibit are endorsed. CATHOLIC HERALD AUG 18 1979 --- Capital Times Judge Traeger thinks Clarenbach is off base WATERTOWN - I take note of an article published under a Madison dateline pertaining to the comments of Rep. David Clarenbach. He stated, according to the report, that laws against homosexual activity between consenting adults should be abolished because they are unwarranted inter- ference with private people's lives and that sex acts among consenting adults need not be considered criminal un- less they are committed in public or in return for anything of value. - However, the most shocking portion of his statement was that laws have placed in a criminal category what a majority-95 percent of our own sex- ually active people are doing any- way. This statement seems to imply that he is a sexually active man that has had contact with a majority of his friends. This statement is outlandish in that sodomy is still sodomy and a violation of carnal copulation in any of certain unnatural ways. We need not base these acts solely on moral grounds, but they are also contrary to nature. Clarence G. Traeger, re- serve judge, Watertown Kennedy open primary delegation. Because this is likely to happen, I think the Wisconsin Democratic party should be more interested in feeling the pulse of the Wisconsin people, rather than assuming an obsequious posture with the Democratic National Committee. - Walter Gust 8/23/79 Green Bay Press-Gazette OCT 16 1979 Cohabitation Law 31 Wisconsin still has a cohabita- tion law. The law prohibits "open cohabi- tation and association with a per- son he knows is not his spouse, under circumstances that imply sexual intercourse." That is a car- ryover from territorial days. But the law does provide up to nine months in jail and a fine of up to $10,000 for violations. The supposition has been that the law is moldering away on the books, that it is rarely enforced. Not true, according to a study by University of Wisconsin Law School Professor Martha Fine- man. used in welfare fraud and pater- nity cases. It was also used against the young, the poor and "undesi- rables." That means that enforcement is selective at best, discriminatory at worst. That kind of enforcement ought to worry state citizens. The cohabitation law repre- sents a moral view of behavior be- tween the sexes which may seem outdated by today's practices. But the law is still on the books. If it does represent the will of a majority of state citizens, then it ought to be enforced, knowing full well that enforcement will run the police and judiciary ragged. Her research shows that district If the law does not represent attorneys in Wisconsin prosecuted the will of the majority, then the under the law about 100 times in legislature should vote to abolish the last five years. The law was it. --- Bill would undermine sexual morality: PULL Editor, The News: Several Wisconsin legislators have proposed a bill to weaken the laws against certain crimes involving sex- ual activity. Their 1979 Assembly Bill 514 provides that acts of fornication, homosexuality, and other sexual perversions would no longer be criminal unless they are performed in public or for any thing of value. If two consenting adults have sexual rela- tions in private, it would no longer be a crime and there would be no penal- ty. Sexual intercourse between un- married, consenting adults would no longer be considered immoral by the state. We agree that the law and police should stay out of the bedroom of a husband and wife, but if Assembly Bill 514 is enacted into law it would en- courage still more fornication, teenage pregnancies, abortion, venereal disease, unmarried young mothers on welfare, homosexuality, communes of "swinging couples", adultery, divorce and broken families. It would become virtually impossible to teach sexual morality to the young. If this bill is enacted, it would, in fact, allow the teaching of sex perversion in the schools. We urge every interested person to write to the governor and to their legislators asking them to keep the Wisconsin moral code on sexual morality intact; and ask them to vote against AB 514. Immoral sex prac- tices are already costing the state millions of dollars in contraceptives, aid to dependent children, venereal disease, psychiatrist and social worker fees; and only God knows the far-reaching effects of an immoral society. - (EDITOR'S NOTE: PULL Peo- ple Using Legislation Legally is a voluntary association of combined decency, morality and anti-smut groups; Wisconsin State Legislators concerned about obsenity, Media We also ask you to take an editorial Morality affiliates in Wisconsin, stand against this bill. People Using Legislation Legally (P.U.L.L.) Oshkosh Daily Northwestern NOV 1 Legislation on sex will be discussed 1979 Proposed state legislation legalizing sex between con- senting adults will be dis- cussed on Wisconsin Public Television on Thursday, Nov. 8, with a repeat broadcast on Saturday, Nov. 10. The discussion, on "Tar- get" on Channel 38, Green Bay, will be led by Rep. David Clarenback (D-Madison), who introduced the bill. Broadcast times are 8 p.m. on Nov. 8 and 1 p.m. on Nov. 10. A toil-free number will be announced on the program so Wisconsin residents may call in questions and comments to guests on the show. Citizens for Decency Through Law af- filiates in Wisconsin (C.D.L.), Citizens Concerned for our Communi- ty of Madison (CCOC), Parents for Morality for Teens, Silent Majority (Menasha), Key Project for Decency Wausau, Others who are concerned.) ---