Is There A Legitimate Right To A Orgy?
The city of Duncanville, Tx that is outscirts of Dallas has been involved in its own petite Jerry Falwell type bible strip clash with the founders of a private “swingers club” named “The Cherry Pit“. The Cherry Pit is a private estate tucked in away in an fashionable Duncanville residential neighborhood. The Cherry Pit advertises on the web and according to advertised news draws as many as 160 adults to a weekly gathering.
The Cherry Pit has been organizing drunk parties where guests pay a cost for entrance and can engage in mosly any kind of sexualgroup sex activity they want on the premises. It is the position of the owners that this does not constitute a “business” as the entrance charge is to cover the price of snacks, soft drinks etc and not a charge for the opportunity of engaging in sex from the tame to the “Pulp Fiction” apple in the mouth brand of entertainment…. It is rumored for an additional service money they would even “bring out the gimp“….(just joking)
The entire thing started backin November of 2006 when past several years of Cherry Pitt neighbors complaining about the offence, traffic and “unsavory element” “the pit” was bringing to the area, the City of Duncanville passed the subsequent ordinance:
“the operation and maintenance of a sex to be unlawful and a public annoyance. Violation of the new order will effect in a fine of up to $3,000.”
The city of Duncanville then decided that the events at the Cherry Pit were more than simply a meeting of “friends and family” looking for some enjoyment and resoluted that it was Really a sexually oriented business and subject to the law. The response of Julie Norris, one of the founders of “The Pit” was the following:
“I do not comprehend what their meaning of a commerce 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 accept gifts. Have you ever had your friends over for a Party and asked everybody to pitch in $5 or bring a dish? 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 believed that the ordinance is a guise to attack their way of life 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 ethics into my private territory and I will stand against that,” Norris said. “That is not what the Constitution allows.”
The founders of the Cherry Pit subsequently counter sued the city claiming the regulation banning swingers clubs violates their confidentiality 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 technique in making the right to privacy argument because there is in fact no right to personal privacy spelled out in the Constitution.
The Cherry Pit’s legal advisor, Edward Klein, said the city tries 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… Only today the City of Duncanville broadened the regulation designed to close the club down by making the classification of a sex club more broad and add a local appeal procedure for swinger clubs that the city orders to shut down.
***October 29, 2008 A jury proclaimed the founders of the Cherry Pit accountable of illegitimately operating a sexually oriented business.
So what you do think? Should private citizens be allowed to “swap pits” at the Pitt without the authorities getting its’ rocks off?
You evidently can’t do heroin in the isolation of your home. These things are illegal regardless of where they are engaged in.
Let us also keep this in mind. Duncanville is NOT attempting to control the swinger personals in Texas showing up at the venue. They are trying to regulate the founders of the place 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 government control. There is a vast difference…
Nobody is going to tell you that you cant go down to your neighborhood red light quarter and get a BJ from Kathie the local crack addict or Bobby the cross dressing pimp or even take any of intercavio de parejas to the Cherry Pit for some fun. We surely are aware of however that the act of handing over a dollar in exchange for the blowjob makes the otherwise consenting action illegal prostitution on one end and the illegal act of soliciting a prostitute on the other end no matter where it occurs (in addition to whatever other nasty action goes with “the other end”). The jury has decided that there is a undeniable government concern 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 commerce. The Cherry Pit has since been closed. While counsel for the owners declared that the decree would be appealed and the statute challenged, it is unclear if either of those was ever pursued.