Even more sodomy here! This reader nicely articulates a common objection to my last post:

Your answer in the Corner to the “I’m against murder” guy is a good answer, but I hope you notice that it’s a different argument than your argument that initially prompted the “I’m against murder” response. The “I’m against murder” guy was pointing out that recognition that any category of person (such as “sodomite” or “murderer”) is a taxpayer, citizen, etc. is perfectly irrelevant to any discussion of whether there ought be laws against persons joining the category.
Your response, that murderers are different from sodomites on the dimension of consent, is a valid distinction. However, your move to a new justification (consent) as opposed to the old justification (taxpaying citizen) implies that the “I’m against murder” guy was right, as far as his objection goes.
The question that your response begs, then, is whether everything that is consensual should be legal. A “yes” answer to this question seems to be the libertarian position, which I don’t think you hold. (Gambling? Prostitution? Usury?) So the interesting question for you is, what’s the rule for deciding whether a consensual action should be legal?

My response: Very fair point(s). I guess I would respond that the “murderers are taxpayers too” rejoinder removes my point from its original context. The relevance of my pointing out that homosexuals are taxpayers, humans and citizens is that implicit to all three are certain expectations of privacy and individual autonomy. Murderers violate these things and while they technically remain human beings they usually lose the prerogatives of citizenship when they are convicted. I think the full contexts of my earlier posts show what I’m talking about.

As for the harder question of whether everything consensual should be legal, my answer is absolutely not. It’s very difficult to generalize about all consensual acts. But I think that one of the first principles should be that consensual acts in public deserve stricter scrutiny than consensual acts in private. I am against virtually all public sodomy — hetero- or homosexual.

Rousseau argued that censorship was useful for preserving values but useless for restoring them. That’s why I’m for strict censorship of, say, kiddie porn. Child pornography is still widely reviled and I would like to keep it that way. Prostitution is illegal de jure but quasi legal de facto. Look at the escort section in your yellow pages, for example. But keeping it illegal amounts to a form of regulatory censorship, limiting its effects.

Take gambling. I think we’d be better off if gambling were only legal in Atlantic City and Las Vegas — legal enough to keep it relatively unprofitable for organized crime and illegal enough to discourage abuse. But I would never dream of saying the government should bust down doors to stop friendly poker games. Sodomy laws are on the books to do that sort of thing and I just think that’s pointless these days because homosexuality is here to stay.