The New Hampshire Supreme Court has decided that gay sex is not adultery. An interesting decision, and a correct one in our view, holding that judges should not be the arbiter of what is or is not an intimate act. The opinion is here. [link via How Appealing.]

Part of the problem in New Hampshire is that adultery is not defined in the state's divorce laws. So the court looked up "adultery" in Webster's dictionary and found that it mentions intercourse. And it found an 1878 case that referred to adultery as "intercourse from which spurious issue may arise."

But the majority did not want the New Hampshire courts to step onto the slippery slope of defining which sex acts outside of intercourse might amount to adultery. "This standard would permit a hundred different judges ... to decide just what individual acts are so sexually intimate as to meet the definition," the court said.