To my knowledge, fornication – sex between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman – is not a crime under Old Testament law. Without bothering to listen to the debate again, I believe Bob made the point that consenting unmarried adults should be “arrested” if they have sex. As God’s policeman, in Bob’s America, the federal government would be given the authority to arrest and punish behavior he personally finds morally offensive, but not important enough to warrant specific legal sanctions under biblical law.
Fornication is the “moral” equivalent of adultery in the New Testament, but correct me if I’m wrong to say that nowhere in Scripture is “fornication” punished as a “misdemeanor,” no less a “capital” crime.
Granted, fornication is found among a laundry list of hell-worthy offenses. It is not, however, as Bob argued, behavior singled out as a criminal “civil” offense. Like, say, adultery, or bearing false witness, or perjury. After all, the reputations of the “accused” are at stake.
I’d be interested to know what “law” has been broken. Cite moral law, case-law, precedent, and application. If Bob was attempting to prosecute the case in a “real” court of biblical law, the court would dismiss the case for want of a “crime.”
If one of the accused is married, both are “guilty” of adultery. Under Old Testament law, adultery was, in fact, a capital crime. America is not, however, ancient Israel, or even a Christian Republic, and we are not talking about “adultery.”
First, if you’re going to govern as a theonomic monarchy, you have to know the law. Second, you have to know the difference between the moral law and civil law. Third, if you don’t know that adultery and fornication are related morally, but not “criminally,” you’ve not only exceeded your “lawful” authority, you have through ignorance or laziness misrepresented Christianity, God’s law, and your King.
All in a days work.