Opinion ID: 2972880
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Intimate Association, Adultery, and Marcum

Text: The district court correctly noted that the right to “intimate association” is not limited to familial relationships but includes relationships characterized by “relative smallness, a high degree of selectivity in decisions to begin and maintain the affiliation, and seclusion from others in critical aspects of the relationship.” Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 620 (1984); see also Anderson v. City of Laverne, 371 F.3d 879, 881-82 (6th Cir. 2004) (for summary judgment purposes, a dating relationship between a police officer and an administrative assistant for the police department qualified as an intimate association because the two were monogamous, had lived together, and were romantically and sexually involved); Akers v. McGinnis, 352 F.3d 1030, 1039-40 (6th Cir. 2003) (personal friendship is protected as an intimate association). In Board of Directors of Rotary Int’l v. Rotary Club of Duarte, 481 U.S. 537, 545 (1987), the Court emphasized that protection is afforded to those relationships that “presuppose ‘deep attachments and commitments to the necessarily few other individuals with whom one shares not only a special community of thoughts, experiences, and beliefs but also distinctively personal aspects of one’s life’” (citing Roberts, 468 U.S. at 619-20). In judging the character of the association involved in this case, the factors of smallness and exclusivity that are referenced in the case law noted above weigh in favor of Plaintiff’s claim, at least when we take the evidence in the light most favorable to Plaintiff and set aside any issues involving Milam’s marital status. According to Plaintiff, she and Milam were “deeply involved in a romantic relationship.” Milam asked Plaintiff to marry him. The two discussed where they would live, looked for a home together, and discussed the intimate details of their lives, including raising children and the bond between husband and wife. They also planned how to merge their families, and decided whether to have additional children and whether Plaintiff’s daughter would live with them. A relationship between a married person and another to whom he or she is not married is “adulterous” if there is a sexually intimate component to the relationship. See Black’s Law Dictionary (7th Ed. 1999) (adultery is voluntary sexual intercourse of a married person with a person other than the offender’s husband or wife.) We held in Marcum that an adulterous intimate relationship does not fall within the purview of constitutional protection. Marcum, 308 F.3d at 643. Plaintiff notes that, before the district court’s order was entered, the United States Supreme Court, in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), overruled Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), for too narrowly construing the scope of an intimate relationship. Plaintiff emphasized in her briefing “the fullness of the [parties’] relationship,” while contending that Marcum cannot properly be applied because “an intimate relationship after Lawrence is not assessed by whether, in fact, Beecham had sexual relations with a legally separated, but not yet legally divorced partner.” Plaintiff has pointed to the absence of actual evidence proving any sexual acts. Although we think that a reasonable inference of such intimacies might well be drawn by an ultimate finder of fact, we agree that the record is not one-sided on that issue. We see no specific admissions or deposition testimony in the record, for example, to support a finding that there was a sexual aspect to the relationship. We conclude that there remains a genuine issue of material fact whether Plaintiff’s relationship with Mr. Milam was, in fact, “adulterous.” While we are doubtful of Plaintiff’s argument that our decision in Marcum was overruled by Lawrence, our application of rational basis review, ante, makes further discussion of the point unnecessary. No. 04-5845 Beecham v. Henderson County, Tenn., et al. Page 4