Do We Have A Legitimate Right To A Orgy?
The town of Duncanville, Texas that is suburb of Dallas has been involved in its own small Jerry Falwell type holy scripture strip clash with the founders of a secret “swingers club” named “The Cherry Pit“. The Cherry Pit is a private mansion tucked in away in an fashionable Duncanville housing neighborhood. The Cherry Pit posts on the internet and according to published news invites as many as 150 members to a weekend social gathering.
The Cherry Pit has been throwing adult-oriented parties where couples pay a charge for admission and can engage in mosly any type of sex actions they want on the site. It is the position of the hosts that this does not constitute a “business” as the entrance price is to cover the cost of foodstuff, beverages etc and not a cost 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 extra service fee they will even “bring out the gimp“….(just a joke)
The whole bru ha ha started earlierin November of 2007 when after few years of Cherry Pitt neighbors complaining about the crime, traffic and “unsavory element” “the pit” was bringing to the district, the City of Duncanville approved the following regulation:
“the operation and maintenance of a swinger to be against the law and a public nuisance. Violation of the new order will effect in a fine of up to $3,000.”
The city of Duncanville then decided that the parties at the Cherry Pit were more than just a meeting of “friends and family” looking for some enjoyment and resoluted that it was Really a sexually oriented business and subject to the decree. The reply of Julie Norris, one of the founders of “The Pit” was the following:
“I do not know what their definition of a business is, but to my understanding a business is public – anyone can simply walk into it and you should pay to get in and we are none of that,” Norris said. “I accept contributions. Have you ever had your friends over for a booze and asked everyone to pitch in $5 or bring a dish? That is precisely what we do. The only requirement to get into my house is that you call and let me know that you are coming and you are on my reservation list.”
Ms Norris went on to state that she believed that the order is a excuse to assault their lifestyles and beliefs and that the ordinance regulating the club violated their First Amendment Rights to Privacy.
“It boils down to people want to put their principles into my own dwelling and I have to stand against that,” Norris said. “That is not what the Constitution allows.”
The owners of the Cherry Pit after that counter sued the city claiming the ordinance banning sex clubs violates their confidentiality and due process rights. They are mainly 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 actually no right to personal privacy spelled out in the Constitution.
The Cherry Pit’s legal representative, Ed Klain, said the city is trying to regulate private acts in a private home using the public nuisance law as a “pretext” to do so….
The Cherry Pitt has remained open while all the official backbiting has taken place… Just now the City of Duncanville broadened the decree intended to close the club down by making the explanation of a sex club more broad and add a local petition procedure for swinger clubs that the city orders to close.
***October 29, 2008 A jury proclaimed the owners of the Cherry Pit guilty of illegitimately operating a sexually oriented industry.
So what you do think? Should private citizens be allowed to “swap pits” at the Pitt without the government getting its’ rocks off?
You evidently can’t do cocaine 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 order the sex meeting Texas showing up at the club. They are attempting to order the owners of the club in allowing 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 government management. There is a vast distinction…
Nobody is going to tell 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 busco compañero to the Cherry Pit for some fun. We of course know however that the act of handing over a dollar in exchange for the blowjob makes the otherwise consenting step 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 whatever other nasty stuff goes with “the other end”). The jury has decided that there is a undeniable state concern to regulate 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 business. The Cherry Pit has since been shut down. While advice for the owners declared that the decree would be appealed and the statute challenged, it is vague if either of those was ever pursued.