Excerpt from a lecture by Dallin H. Oaks, “The Popular Myth of the Victimless Crime”, pub. Brigham Young University Press, 1974: ¹

“First, I believe in retaining criminal penalties on sex crimes such as adultery, fornication, prostitution, homosexuality, and other forms of deviate sexual behavior. I concede the abuses and risks of invasion of privacy that are involved in the enforcement of such crimes and therefore concede the need for extraordinary supervision of the enforcement process. I am even willing to accept a strategy of extremely restrained enforcement of private, noncommercial sexual offenses. I favor retaining these criminal penalties primarily because of the standard-setting and teaching function of these laws on sexual morality and their support of society’s exceptional interest in the integrity of the family.”