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Tuesday, July 13, 2004
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THESE THINGS I BELIEVE
"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."
-Senator Rick Santorum
(R)-Pennsylvania
Monday April 21, 2003
Santorum actually did say this just before the Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) (a compelling amicus brief in this case can be read here), which reversed Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) and threw out consenual sodomy laws in the United States.
Santorum, of course, got shithammered for this statement. I'd like to say this: he was right. Now before everyone goes ballistic on me, let me finish. I would also add, "but so what?" The most telling word in the tirade is "consensual." So long as the acts that Santorum listed are among consenting adults (children are legally incapable of consent virtually anywhere), I have zero problem with any of them. Some guy decides that he loves marriage so much that he wants three more wives? Okay, so long as you're not kidnapping hookers and marrying them at drillpoint. You'll be sorry, but feel free. Some middle-aged steelworker and his spinster sister decide that they've been horribly disappointed by their sexual relationships with non-relatives? So long as you keep it quiet if I'm in the next room, go ahead. Since my last two girlfriends were married when I became involved with them, my felings on adultery are pretty easy to guess. God bless it.
I can think of no logical, non-emotional, non-religious reason to be against any of those things. Some might argue that incestuous couples produce retard children, but so do many non-incestuous ones. Don't believe me? Look in your living room right now. I'll bet you see at least one sub-human there and very possibly several. Look around your home. How many PlayStation units are there? Now how many books? That's my view of things. If I can't think of a reason to be against something, I'm for it. Pretty simple, huh?
Conservatives don't think so. Actually, I should clarify that. People who say that they're conservatives don't think so. Increasingly, these conservatives are anything but conservative. George Bush, for example, is NOT a conservative. There is very little that is traditionally conservative about him. Not on foreign policy, not on economic policy, not on social policy and certainly not on Constitutional theory. Ditto, Stephen Harper. Most modern conservatives (as opposed to "neo-conservative" which is liberal code for "dirty Jew") are far more radical populist than they are conservative. Look into the populist movement of the late nineteenth century. It consisted of spending money in unreally unwise ways and telling everybody they can't do anything fun. Sound familiar?
The difference between the Republican Party under President Bush and the Democratic Party under Senator Kerry is really only one of degree. Look at the issue in depth and you'll quickly find that the debate is really about how to unwisely spend all the money and under what circumstances American troops should visit exotic locales. Whether to do these things or not is not at issue. John Kerry has gone to great lengths to assure voters of his willingness to bomb foreign-looking people. He's done everything but come right out and say, "I went to a foreign country and committed war crimes. And unlike George Bush, I didn't wait until I was in my fifties to do it." And George Bush will finish one of his more vitriolic rants on "big government" by saying, "Anyhooo, how you teenagers liking those cheap prescription drugs I gave you?" Bush is not a conservative and Kerry is well....full of shit.
But both would like to use the full force of federal law to tell you what to do. Ask either candidate what they would like to do with anyone who engages in any of the activities Senator Santorum described. President Bush would have them crucified. Senator Kerry would have them burned at the stake...after taking a campaign contribution from them.
I began yet another tirade on gay marriage on Sunday night in which I alluded to a number of ugly consequences, but I never really fleshed them out. I apologise for that. I was chock full of sleeping pills as I wrote it. And some you probably think I'm beating a dead horse with the whole gay marriage thing, but hey, it's what I do best. You should know that by now. Am I really going to have to post the Britney/Madonna picture again?
In the introduction to Sunday's missive, I suggested that a Constitutional amendment on gay marriage would be "an open declaration of war on 50 years of Constitutional principles." I should have been more fair and balanced on that. The Democratic means of dealing with the issue would lead to the same result. Whichever side prevails, the message is sent that either the federal government or the individual states can interfere in the private activities of private citizens or entitities. If it is written into the Constitution that private activities can be prohibited and the states are powerless to protest, they could then argue the reverse and suggest that federal law in private states rights issues can be circumvented. This could very well lead to a challenge of Court rulings such as Lawrence and Loving v. Virginia. A challenge to Loving could tee up a challenge to Brown v. Board of Education quite nicely. If that happens, you can say "see ya" to, among other things, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act. It would stand to reason that if the states allow the Constitution to discriminate, the Constitution should allow the states to discriminate. Those, in a nutshell, are the possible consequences of the Republican approach.
The Democrats would much rather cut out the middle man and let the states get right to discrimination. John Kerry has all but said in public that "Wyoming doesn't need the federal government's help in fag bashing." The states could then say, "Well, if the federal government can say who can't get married, how can it dictate who can, for example, be barred from staying in a private hotel?" This is known as the Public Accomodations Clause of the '64 Civil Rights Act.
This also overlooks the fact that the Democratic approach of "leave it to the states" has already been done with the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which is as I explained on Sunday, unconstitutional.
But regardless of which approach is adopted the long term consequences are potentially disasterous for the Union as it is now viewed. Either approach would basically vivisect the Fourteenth Amendment and eventually that would debilitate the civil rights of everybody. The "conservatives" are at least honest. They think Jesus wants them to do this. The liberals should, and I believe do, know better. They just don't care. They want to win so bad that they'll shank anybody to do it.
What no one's willing to admit is that this could get much bigger than gay marriage.
Don't get me wrong though. I still loathe Rosie O'Donnell. God, that woman's almost as stupid as she is ugly. The fact that I'm her side about anything makes me sick to my stomach.
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