WASHINGTON POST
Blame Canada, the Sequel
Justice Antonin Scalia seemed somewhat put out the other day when the high court struck down laws against sodomy in private among consenting adults. He warned the decision would take us quickly down a slippery slope to same-sex marriage, bestiality, adultery and adult incest.
If the Canadian experience offers any guide, Scalia may be on to something. The Canadians often seem a few paces ahead of their cousins to the south. They had cable television and self-serve gasoline before the States did. On matters of morality and crime, they have sanctioned same-sex marriage and smoking weed.
And judges there are not reluctant to tackle vexing questions. Last week, for example, a judge in Montreal ruled that swingers clubs are legal in Canada. "The court concludes that contemporary Canadian society tolerates swingers' clubs," Judge Denis Boisvert wrote in a case of people charged with running a bawdy house.
"On the other hand, if the sexual exchanges take place in public, even among an informed, consenting and adult public, it does not constitute swinging, but orgies," Boisvert said, according to accounts in the Canadian press, and "Canadians do not tolerate orgies."
Fortunately, it's cold up there, so such activities don't usually occur on the front lawn.
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