New York Senate decides to abolish adultery law

The New York state Senate approved lawmakers’ repeal of a century-old law that makes adultery in the state a crime on Wednesday.

Initially passed in 1907, the goal of the law was to drive down the divorce rate. At the time, adultery was the only acceptable reason to grant a divorce in the state of New York, making the crime a misdemeanor and punishable by up to three months in jail.

The statute classifies adultery in the state as someone who “engages in sexual intercourse with another person at a time when he has a living spouse, or the other person has a living spouse.”

Last month, Democratic Assemblyman Charles Lavine proposed legislation to repeal it, which the Assembly overwhelmingly approved.

The law was mostly unenforced in recent decades, with just about 13 people charged for the crime since 1972, according to Lavine. New York’s Senate passed the legislation to repeal the law Wednesday with a 57-4 vote, with two Democrats and two Republicans voting against the repeal.

“I am extremely pleased that the Senate overwhelmingly agrees that this archaic statute needs to be wiped off the books,” Lavine said in a press statement. “If a law is not enforced, then there is no reason that it should be maintained.”

However, Republicans reportedly blasted Democrats for wasting time on passing the bill instead of focusing on public safety. Republican Assemblyman Michael Durso serves the district where Jonathan Diller’s family lives. Diller was a New York City Police Department officer who was shot and killed last week during a traffic stop.

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“There’s a woman at home who just buried her husband because he was murdered by a criminal,” Durso said, according to Spectrum News. “We have a list and a package of bills here that we could be voting on, and it’s not coming to the floor, because the majority refuses to bring it to the floor. Instead of wasting our time and BS-ing around, we could actually be making change.”

The bill will now land on Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D-NY) desk, where she will review it before signing or vetoing it. Adultery is still a misdemeanor in a handful of other states, including Wisconsin, Michigan, and Oklahoma.