Do We Have A Constitutional Right To A Swing Party?
The town of Duncanville, Tx that is outscirts of Dallas has been involved in its own petite Jerry Falwell style bible strip combat with the founders of a privileged “adult club” named “The Cherry Pit“. The Cherry Pit is a private dwelling tucked in away in an expensive Duncanville residential community. The Cherry Pit advertises on the internet and according to advertised information invites as many as 160 members to a weekly social gathering.
The Cherry Pit has been organizing private lesbian parties where couples pay a cost for entrance and are allowed engage in pretty much any kind of sexualgroup sex actions they want on the site. It is the position of the owners that this does not constitute a “business” as the entry price is to cover the expence of food, drinks 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 said for an extra service charge they will even “bring out the gimp“….(just joking)
The entire thing happened latein October of 2006 when past few years of Cherry Pitt neighbors complaining about the crime, traffic and “unsavory element” “the pit” was bringing to the neighborhood, the City of Duncanville passed the following order:
“the operation and maintenance of a club to be unlawful and a public nuisance. Violation of the new ordinance 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 fun and resoluted that it was in fact a sexually oriented commerce and subject to the ordinance. The respond of Julie Norris, one of the owners of “The Pit” was as follows:
“I don’t comprehend what their classification of a industry 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 allow contributions. Have you ever had your friends over for a booze and asked everybody to pitch in $5 or bring a food? That is precisely what we do. The only condition to get into my home is that anyone 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 rule is a excuse to harass 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 principles into my personal territory and I am going to 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 order banning sex clubs violates their privacy 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 scheme 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 Klein, 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 squabbling has taken place… Only now the City of Duncanville broadened the ordinance designed to shut the club down by making the definition of a adult club more broad and add a local appeal procedure for adult clubs that the town orders to close.
***October 29, 2008 A jury proclaimed the owners of the Cherry Pit responsible of illegitimately operating a sexually oriented company.
So what you do think? Should private citizens be allowed to “swap pits” at the Pitt without the state getting its’ rocks off?
You evidently can not do cocaine in the privacy of your dwelling. These things are illegal regardless of where they are engaged in.
Let us as well keep this in mind. Duncanville is NOT trying to control the Texas swingers showing up at the club. They are attempting to control the founders of the home 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 state control. There is a huge dissimilarity…
Nobody is going to advice you that you should not go down to your local red light district and get a BJ from Lily the local crack addict or Johnny the cross dressing pimp or even take any of hombres para parejas swinger to the Cherry Pit for some entertainment. We of course know however that the act of handing over a dollar in exchange for the BJ makes the otherwise consenting operation illegal prostitution on one end and the illegal act of soliciting a prostitute on the other end no matter where it happens (in addition to whatsoever other disgusting action goes with “the other end”). The state has decided that there is a undeniable government interest to normalize 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 closed. While warnings for the owners declared that the decree would be appealed and the statute challenged, it is uncertain if either of those was ever pursued.