Is There A Constitutional Right To A Swing Party?
The municipality of Duncanville, Tx which is suburb of Dallas has been drawn in its own small Jerry Falwell type holy scripture strip fight with the founders of a secluded “swingers club” named “The Cherry Pit“. The Cherry Pit is a private landed property tucked in away in an expensive Duncanville residential community. The Cherry Pit posts on the internet and according to published reports invites as many as 130 guests to a weekly party.
The Cherry Pit has been organizing swingers adult party where couples pay a fee for entry and are able engage in almost any type of sex deeds they want on the location. It is the position of the hosts that this does not constitute a “business” as the entrance fee is to cover the cost of foodstuff, drinks etc and not a price for the benefit of engaging in sex from the tame to the “Pulp Fiction” apple in the mouth brand of entertainment…. It is whispered for an additional service money they will even “bring out the gimp“….(just a joke)
The entire bru ha ha happened earlierin December of 2006 when after few years of Cherry Pitt neighbors complaining about the crime, parties and “unsavory element” “the pit” was bringing to the neighborhood, the City of Duncanville passed the subsequent decree:
“the function and maintenance of a club to be illegal and a public irritation. Violation of the new order can result in a fine of up to $2,000.”
The city of Duncanville then decided that the parties at the Cherry Pit were more than just a meeting of “friends and family” seeking some enjoyment and resoluted that it was actually a sexually oriented commerce and subject to the law. The reaction of Julie Norris, one of the owners of “The Pit” was the following:
“I do not know what their classification of a commerce is, but to my understanding a business is public – anybody can just walk into it and you have to pay to get in and we are none of that,” Norris said. “I accept gifts. Have you ever had your buddies over for a booze and asked everyone to pitch in $5 or bring a bowl? That is just what we do. The only condition to get into my house is that a person call and let me know that you are coming and you are on my reservation list.”
Ms Norris continued to state that she assumed that the decree is a guise to assault their lifestyles and beliefs and that the order regulating the club violated their First Amendment Rights to Privacy.
“It boils down to people want to put their morality into my private home and I will stand against that,” Norris said. “That is not what the Constitution allows.”
The founders of the Cherry Pit then counter sued the city claiming the ordinance banning adult clubs violates their solitude and due process rights. They are basically using the same argument under which a right to privacy was found under Roe v. Wade. They have to use this method in making the right to privacy argument because there is basically no right to personal privacy spelled out in the Constitution.
The Cherry Pit’s lawer, Edward Kline, said the city is trying to regulate private acts in a private home 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 today the City of Duncanville broadened the ordinance meant to lock the club down by making the explanation of a sex club more general and add a local petition procedure for sex clubs that the town orders to shut down.
***October 29, 2008 A jury proclaimed the founders of the Cherry Pit accountable of illegitimately operating a sexually oriented industry.
So what do you think? Should private citizens be tolerated to “swap pits” at the Pitt without the state getting its’ rocks off?
You evidently can’t do drugs in the isolation of your home. These things are illegal regardless of where they are engaged in.
Let us as well keep this in mind. Duncanville is NOT attempting to control the swingers in TX showing up at the club. They are trying to order the founders of the home in encouraging the “Piters” to engage in sex for a fee at their home…. The government 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 control. There is a vast distinction…
Nobody is going to tell you that you can not go down to your local red light area and get a blowjob from Kathie the local crack addict or Eddie the cross dressing pimp or even take any of busco pareja swinger to the Cherry Pit for some fun. We surely know nonetheless that the act of handing over a dollar in trade for the BJ makes the otherwise consenting operation illegal prostitution on one end and the illegal operation of soliciting a prostitute on the other end no matter where it occurs (in addition to whatsoever other nasty action goes with “the other end”). The jury has decided that there is a undeniable government interest to control 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 industry. The Cherry Pit has since been locked. While counsel for the owners stated that the decree would be appealed and the statute challenged, it is vague if either of those was ever pursued.
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