BUFFALO, N.Y. — While most would probably say that it's wrong to cheat on your spouse, few people might know that it is actually illegal to do so in New York State.
The latter, however, may change if a bill under consideration at the state capitol in Albany is approved.
"Intimate contact between consenting adults ought not to be criminalized," said NYS Assembly Member Charles D. Lavine (D-13th District) of Nassau County.
For more than a century adultery has been a crime in the state under a law passed in 1907. It remains on the books, and those convicted of the Class B misdemeanor face up to 90 days in jail.
According to Lavine, only 13 people have been charged with adultery in the state in the last 50 years.
Lavine says besides being arcane and rarely enforced, there is a larger overriding reason to strike the law.
"I think it's time we put in the past the idea that conduct between consenting adults should be illegal," Lavine said. "After all, that's the Supreme Court told us in Lawrence V. Texas."
Lavine's reference was to a landmark Supreme Court ruling, which struck down laws against sodomy between consenting adults as unconstitutional.
"And we want to make sure, don't we, that we comply with the rulings of the Supreme Court in the United States," he said.
According to the Associated Press, the last time anyone was charged with adultery in New York was almost 14 years ago in a case which occurred in Genesee County in Western New York.
In June of 2010, Suzanne Corona and Justin Amend were caught having sex in a picnic shelter near a playground in a public park in Batavia.
Because she was married, and her lover was not, only Corona was charged with adultery, which she told reporters was "extremely unfair and uncalled for," when she appeared in court to face the charges.
The Adultery charge against Corona was later dismissed when she plead guilty to a count of public lewdness, which Amend was also charged with.
Lavine's bill is brief (only one page) and simply calls for repealing Section 255.17 of the NYS penal law, which defines Adultery as "engaging in sexual intercourse with another person at a time when he has a living spouse, or the other person has a living spouse."
It has already passed the State Assembly and is in a committee of the State Senate.