prison for adultery

From World, a little blurb on adultery in South Korea as a punishable offense...

South Korean prosecutors seek an 18-month prison sentence for popular South Korean actress Ok So-ri, 39, who admitted to breaking the law by having an affair with a pop singer. [She] sought to overturn the 50-year-old law criminalizing adultery, but in October the Constitutional Court ruled that adultery should remain a criminal offense because it damages the social order.

In my thoughts and writings on a consistent Christian philosophy of government, this is an interesting anecdote. If one is going to pursue such laws, the strongest biblical ground for doing so is in defending "the social order". Of course, there's quite a slippery slope there-- as many things might be determined to damage that order.

More specifically, if conservative Christians are going to pursue regulations in categories of "social morality"-- rather than "justice" issues such as abortion, where someone is directly and significantly harmed-- then adultery should surely rises toward the top of that political agenda. Or if a Christian is going to use politics to defend marriage and sexual ethics, then a focus on divorce, adultery, and even pre-marital sex should trump the contemporary concerns with "same-sex unions".