Pity Poor Hester Prynne, If She Lived in Mackinac

The legislators and judges in Michigan today have nothing on New England Puritans three and a half centuries ago. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne only had to suffer having the letter 'A' embroidered on the bosom of her dress. Michigan makes Puritans look like free-love hippies.

In Michigan, the punishment for having adulterous sex (adultery is a felony in Michigan) that included coital penetration is life in prison. Manslaughter, kidnapping, selling crack to minors, these are all petty offenses compared to a married woman having a fling with the pool boy. State authorities are adament they will not use this newly discovered interpretation of the law to turn Michigan into the most sexually repressive state in the Union. But, the law is there to defend the Wolverine State against any rash of Desperate Housewives. By the by, the state Attorney General who pushed the Court of Appeals for the decision that led to this legal conclusion is himself an admitted adulterer.

Full credit to the crack research department of Blognonymous for this discovery.