Thursday, July 10, 2003

George Will is Losing It. See his piece today.  He asks us, " Once the court has said that some such acts are constitutional rights, by what principle are any of the myriad possible permutations of consensual adult sexual activities denied the same standing?", then goes on to list " Bigamy? Polygamy? Prostitution? Incest? Even -- if we assume animals can consent, or that their consent does not matter -- bestiality?". If George Will cannot tell the difference between these acts and a standard gay relationship, he need to focus in on whatever event in his childhood has lead to such brain trauma and get help.  Bigamy and Polygamy are the same thing -- the reason the state may wish to intervene here and not grant a civil union status has several parts.  First, a one-to-one relationship is something that is easily handled in a legal sense.  With a union, you are granting certain rights and responsibilities, each person unto the other.  There simply isn't any way to spread this notion across more than one person.  Second, certain polyamorous marriages have less than complete consent by the participants.  Prostitution is a commercial act.  For that reason a state may have the right to intrude, for commercial reasons.  Incest has long-standing genetic reasoning behind it.  This is no mere act of consent -- there are very real genetic consequences to it, the costs of which are borne by society.  And bestiality?  Why is it that certain Republicans seem to be utterly unable to see the difference between a dog and a man?  Methinks Mr. Will doth protest too much. The bottom line is that he's searching for a reason to justify his personal morality, to explain why a state should have the right to invade the privacy of two consenting adults under whatever circumstances they choose.  If we take his argument at face value, the state may insert these kinds of laws into any zone of privacy it chooses.  In George Will's world, a state should have the right to regulate and interracial affair, for example.  I do not imply that Mr. Will would agree with such a law; only that if a state has an unlimited right to regulate private sexual conduct, why should it stop with anti-gay laws? The bottom line on this one is that there is a single reason that Will and other columnists keep trotting out this "end of the world" crap.  They are desperately trying to find a legal way to continue to harass gays.  There is no grand principal here that is being lost.  The lines describing what is moral and what is not are not being massively redrawn.  You either perceive the Supreme Court decision as a slight shift, or you perceive it as the end of the world.  It's not the end of the world, and the right needs to back down on their absolutist message. 12:21:24 PM    comment []