Florida Supreme Court To Define Sex

The Supreme Court Of Florida is set to issue a ruling to define something that you’d think most people know about already.

You’d think that would be easy enough to figure out, but you know what happens when you get the lawyers involved.

 

FILED UNDER: Law and the Courts,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Tillman says:

    It’ll start with, “The process that makes babies,” but then some pedant will go, “What about uterine implantation?” And it will go downhill from there, forever.

  2. pylon says:

    Clinton will be vindicated won’t he?

  3. JWH says:

    Let me tell you ’bout the contracts and the torts and the common and the statute …

  4. legion says:

    You’d think that would be easy enough to figure out, but you know what happens when you get the lawyers involved.

    Well, lawyers have so many different ways to screw people, you really need to be specific… 🙂

  5. grumpy realist says:

    Well, it’s pretty obvious that when this sort of stuff gets started, it’s because a lot of people have different definitions of it. If you look at the article, you’ll see this boils down to an attempted defense that “sex between two lesbians isn’t sex.” (the Queen Victoria defense, I guess.)

    We end up writing down legal bright lines when during law cases we discover that the “well, everybody knows what X is” actually doesn’t hold.

    Think of Markman hearings and claim interpretation, Doug.

  6. al-Ameda says:

    @Doug:
    I can help, I’ll write the opinion myself.
    This is my considered legal opinion:

    “If you have to ask…”

  7. Kari Q says:

    During the Clinton hearings, my husband came up with a definition that I still hold to: If there’s an orgasm involved, it’s sex.

  8. bill says:

    @pylon: depends, they’ll have to rule on what “is” is!

  9. dazedandconfused says:

    “I know it when I see it.” -Potter Stewart

  10. PogueMahone says:

    Two words: “pet. granted”