Media Relations: bravo: the cable channel that makes fun of gay men so you don't have to!/ May 28, 2003
Posted by iain at 01:11 AM
Well, this is an intriguing mess.
The Scotsman - Top Stories - Blair's EU hammer blow: TONY Blair's credibility over Europe lay in tatters last night, after Brussels unveiled a blueprint for a European superstate. In a last-minute concession to British concerns, the 148-page dossier that proposes stripping the UK government of many of its powers did not contain the word "federal". But in a humiliating blow to the Prime Minister, a leading eurocrat confided only hours later that its replacement term - "in a community way" - meant exactly the same thing. In the new vision for Europe, there would be an elected president and an all-powerful European minister of foreign affairs. Mr Blair's personal envoy to the Convention on the Future of Europe, Peter Hain, attempted to pass off the draft document as a "big advance for democracy" and a victory for Britain.
One wonders exactly what Mr Blair intends to do with this. In its current state, the European Union constitution would almost certainly not pass parliament. If it was submitted to the British public, it would be soundly rejected. (In fact, one suspects that if it were submitted to other European nations, it would be rejected, as well.)
The draft constitution unveiled in Brussels yesterday would, if approved, commit member states to "unreservedly" back a European Union common foreign policy.
One suspects -- just suspects -- that the insertion of the term "unreservedly" may have been a response to the recent unpleasantness between Germany and France and Eastern Europe over US policy toward Iraq. It's fascinating to see how autocratic Europe's politicians really are, in their heart of hearts. Even here, the states didn't declare themselves lockstep behind the administration's policy. Now, in what's theoretically supposed to be something resembling a democratic union, Europe wishes to stifle public dissent.
This would not seem to be an unreservedly reasonable way to proceed to create a democratic superstate.
Elsewhere, the Guardian/Observer is accusing newspaper magnates, politicians and other movers and shakers of being in cahoots to torpedo the new constitution.
Referendum calls grow as EU issues draft constitution (The Times Online, May 27, 2003): ..... Despite trying to appear reasonable and pragmatic in public, behind the scenes ministers are preparing to wield Britain’s veto if its powers over foreign policy are threatened. Mr Blair will team up with Jacques Chirac, the French President, to challenge any serious encroachment into national governments’ power to set their own foreign policy.
And that, frankly, just seems wildly inappropriate. After having tried to bludgeon Eastern Europe into following the French and German policy line on Iraq, after having thoroughly villified Britain during that same time period, NOW Chirac wants to make certain that national governments retain the power to set their own policy. Clearly, someone is being fed a bill of goods; it's just not clear who it is. (Given that he seems to have spent almost two solid months being taken by surprise by various developments here and elsewhere, one suspects it's Blair.)
The EU bureaucrats seem to want to turn Europe into a more autocratic version of the US. Unfortunately, it's not likely to work well when you have so many members with different histories, with long memories of actual antagonism to some of these states ... with different languages, for heaven's sake. What will wind up being the lingua franca of the new Europe? Given the stated desire of some bureaucrats for this to be a political, economic, and military counterweight to the US, it would seem rather silly for the official language to be English. Numerically, the largest single linguistic group would be Russians, if Russia is allowed to join this federation, but Russian also seems rather improbable.
It will be fascinating to see how this all plays out ... in a "glad I'm not there" sort of way.
Posted by iain at 12:12 AM
A bull in a china shop really is a very bad thing, as it turns out.
BBC NEWS | UK | England | Lancashire | Bull on antique rampage: An escaped bull has been shot by police marksmen after it ran amok in a Lancashire antiques shop. The rampaging animal injured a woman and destroyed several valuable items at G and B Antiques and Furnishings in Lancaster. The bull had made its way to the store after escaping from a local auction mart, a police spokesman said. It knocked over a woman who was taken to hospital with a bruised shoulder, though she was later discharged after treatment.
Not often that an aphorism comes to life, is it?
Posted by iain at 10:35 PM
Oh, goodie. It seems that one part the administration's policy for the Not-Going-To-Be-Called-An-Occupation Occupation is actually working out. You know, that thing where they would institute a rolling civil war in Iraq so that the nonBaathists could murder all the government officials and save the administration the time and effort of finding them. Mind, it doesn't quite seem to be to the level of a rolling civil war yet, but there does seem to be a lovely little side industry in revenge murder going on.
Iraqis Killing Former Baath Party Members (washingtonpost.com): Iraqis have begun tracking down and killing former members of the ruling Baath Party, doubtful that the United States intends to adequately punish the mid-level government functionaries who they say tormented them for three decades. The assassinations appear to have picked up since the United States issued a decree last Friday that prohibits senior Baath Party officials from holding positions in Iraq's postwar government. A senior U.S. official said the order was intended to "drive a stake through [the Baath Party's] heart," but many Iraqis who continue to see party officials walking free believe it did not go far enough. The number of former Baath Party officials killed since the war ended is difficult to pin down in a city of 5 million people with only two functioning police stations, no recordkeeping and a destroyed government. Drawing on anecdotal evidence, however, former exile groups and Iraqis familiar with some of the killings say it could reach several hundred in Baghdad alone.
Apparently, merely banning the former officials from power -- at the same time, one might note, as the occupation is hiring former police and military to serve as additional police because they're so desperately undermanned and don't want to look like an occupation -- has caused Iraqis to decide that if they ever want to see what they would consider to be justice, they have to do it themselves.
"We want the Americans to kill them, but we don't think they are going to," said Muntathar Mohammed, a 40-year-old unemployed Sadr City resident. "Why can Americans kill anyone they want? Why can't we? I will kill Baathists myself. This is my right."
The United States has begun deploying more troops to Baghdad in an attempt to recover credibility lost in a crime wave that descended over the city after April 9. A looting spree has left large parts of the capital gutted, and the inability of U.S. forces to catch Hussein has given many Iraqis who suffered under Baath Party rule the impression that the mission is not a priority.
Of course, at this particular moment, the capture of Hussein and his sons is simply not a priority. The military doesn't have enough manpower to keep Iraqi citizens safe from each other, Ba'athist or not; it certainly can't spare the forces needed to scour Iraq and surrounding countries to find three people.
One suspects -- just suspects -- that unless the administration is willing to make far more of a commitment than it has so far signalled, the chances of restoring order to a country in which revenge murders are seen as "my right" are, at best, remote.
(Purely a side note: The revenge murderers seem to have gotten party lists from the information and security ministry. It is utterly incomprehensible that the military never secured the information and security ministries to prevent their looting; surely they once held all sorts of information that the administration could have used to support their case. That is a truly baffling lapse.)
Posted by iain at 02:02 PM
glbtq >> gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender & queer encyclopedia
Interesting site. If only they had a "print" style sheet that allowed you to print off entire articles to read offline at your leisure. (Because some of those pieces are wonderfully detailed and scholarly and, you know, freakin' LONG.)
Posted by iain at 02:28 PM
HoustonChronicle.com - Perry wants review of convictions in Tulia sting: One day after a Senate committee advanced legislation to free the remaining Tulia drug-sting defendants from prison, Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday ordered the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to review all 38 of the Tulia convictions. Breaking a long silence on the controversial 1999 arrests, Perry asked the board to "recommend whether a pardon, commutation of sentence or other clemency action is appropriate and just." Perry's office said the governor contacted the parole board after reviewing the findings of a judge who recommended that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturn all 38 convictions and order new trials. In his report to the appellate court, retired state District Judge Ron Chapman, who presided over evidentiary hearings in March, found that the only witness against the defendants, undercover officer Tom Coleman, was guilty of "blatant perjury" during the Tulia prosecutions. "It would be a travesty of justice to permit ... the convictions to stand," Chapman wrote. Perry, who received a copy of Chapman's findings last week, voiced "grave concerns about the potential miscarriage of justice."
Yes, one would think that he would have "grave concerns".
Prosecutors have said the cases would be dismissed if the Court of Criminal Appeals orders new trials. But the appellate court's review could take as long as two years, some officials say. Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, has filed legislation, Senate Bill 1948, to permit a district judge in Swisher County to release on bond 13 Tulia residents who are still in prison while the appellate court deliberates their cases.
Ah. I was wondering why legislative action would be needed for cases that everyone already knows will be dismissed. For that matter, I wonder why it will take the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals a full two years to get through this; why couldn't they simply issue an opinion accepting the district court's recommendation, overturn the convictions en masse and be done with it?
Unfortunately, since the Texas House Democrats have fled to Oklahoma to prevent action on several bills, including a redistricting bill featuring some quite spectacular gerrymandering, it's likely that this bill will die in the Senate. Perhaps in that case, the governor may have the ability to do something with his executive powers; unfortunately, the powers of the Texas governor are notoriously circumscribed. Clemency without prior review may be the only solution left if the House doesn't return before the end of session.
Posted by iain at 04:01 PM
And so Baghdad continues to pay the price for the administration's desire to have a nice, quick little strike force, get in, get out, leave a little civil war behind, and yet have everything somehow work out in the end.
For Crime Victims in Iraq, No Place to Turn (washingtonpost.com): Late Friday night, two young women arrived at the iron gates of the Alwia neighborhood's maternity hospital, where a dust-covered white statue of a nursing mother welcomes patients and visitors. The teenagers were bruised and bloody, hospital workers recall. They asked to see a female doctor. An OB-GYN named Enas Hamdani examined them. The doctor's disgust and anger grew as the pair sobbed out their story. While they were walking last Wednesday afternoon to buy bread at the market, three men in an orange-and-white taxi kidnapped them at gunpoint. They were driven several miles, they said, to a small house on the periphery of the city, in a farming area they'd never been before. The well-appointed hideout included beds, satellite television and a supply of food, the patients told Hamdani. "They were 18 and 19 years old. They were virgins," Hamdani says in an interview in her office today. "You can imagine what happened, of course." Her examination showed evidence of repeated rape and sodomy, which the victims told her was carried out by five men for 36 hours. The women also had been beaten with boards on their faces and backs, she says. [...] As much as she despises the rapists, Hamdani reserves a special contempt for American forces who conquered Baghdad more than a month ago. She and others have heard repeated promises that reconstituted Iraqi police patrols, accompanied by military units, will be here soon. But in many neighborhoods, military commanders say their troops are stretched thinly and have no training in police work. "Everybody needs security, everywhere in Iraq. Where is it?" the doctor asks, adjusting her head scarf and batting away flies. "We don't even know where to ask." The doctor cocks a finger toward her head, as if it's a gun. "It's like the Texas you see in the movies." She means the Wild West.
Reports of rapes, holdups and murders are multiplying citywide, in both poor and upscale districts. In this city of 5 million, the dearth of police is a fundamental problem, but certainly not the only one: Electrical power, gasoline, clean water and medical supplies remain unavailable or out of reach for many residents. The looting that broke out after the fall of Baghdad was a harbinger of a slow devolution into fear and despair, especially after dark, especially for women.
In Baghdad's Anarchy, the Insane Went Free (NY Times, registration required, May 12, 2003): The only mental patient left behind at the high security ward of Al Rashad state hospital is a killer named Ali Sabah, a former math and science teacher with jet black hair and dark, searching eyes. He is off his medications, the door to the ward is wide open and shards of glass lie everywhere as potential weapons. Yet on a recent day he was calm until this reporter made a few notes. "Why is he writing my name down?" he asked. [...] In another part of the hospital, the six women among the patients who were raped by looters are receiving special attention from the nursing staff. Some spend their days curled under blankets, others have ventured out to squat in the light where there are no chairs, but where cigarettes can be smoked. The nurses whisper that one rape victim is pregnant. [...] One of the tragedies of the war — a preventable tragedy in the view of many doctors and nurses — occurred here. Iraq's only hospital providing long-term care for chronic schizophrenia and other serious disorders, Al Rashad was all but destroyed. When American marines clashed with Saddam Hussein's irregulars trying to block their advance into Baghdad, the marines came through the gates here and knocked down the walls with their tanks. They set up a command post in the nursing school. Waves of looters came in with them, staff members said. One of the oldest health institutions in Iraq, Al Rashad has long been designated a civilian hospital. The director, Amir Abou Heelo, told the Marine commander on April 8 that he was entering a psychiatric facility, staff doctors said in interviews. But the protest did little good. "I am disappointed," said Dr. Raghad Sursan, a psychiatrist. "I am mad, and if there is a word that is bigger than mad, I am that, because the marines were there and could have done something to stop it."
Why in heaven's name would you set up a command post in a facility and fail to protect the entire compound? What on earth could it gain you to allow the clinically insane to be freed and/or assaulted under your watch?
The administration was astonishingly short sighted in this venture. I'm sure that there were one or two vaguely sane people who pointed out that it would be far more difficult to put this particular genie back into the bottle once it was let out, once you allowed -- as a matter of policy -- uncontrolled violence to break free. Yes, most assuredly, some of the worst Ba'athists will be murdered by their fellow citizens, as the administration intended. But far more likely is that perfectly innocent people, already victimized once by Saddam's regime, would be assaulted again by the less law abiding members of society.
Not that there's actual law in Iraq these days, of course.
And of course, the problem is that the US now needs to provide a police force not only for Baghdad's 5 million people, but for all of Iraq's 30 million. The old detested police forces are no more; their stations have been burned, the people run away. Apart from anything else, the abolition of the Ba'ath party makes staffing the police problematic; how can you find trained police who weren't part of the security apparatus? The plain fact is that it simply isn't possible.
At the same time, the administration wants to avoid appearing as an occupying colonial power, so they want, to the extent possible, Iraqis in lower governmental positions, and to staff the police and support services. Again, they must turn to former government officials, former security police, because there is nobody else. In another world, the non-Republican Guard members of the army might have been able to serve some of that function without invoking the loathing and hatred that the Republican Guard engendered, but mostly, they're dead or dispersed.
A military officer said, some time ago, that peacekeeping in Iraq would take almost all of the deployable military. The administration shut him up fast, because they didn't want to scare Congress or the public with a realistic number. Of course, anyone with even the tiniest bit of common sense would have realized that the current forces, engaged in both military cleanup and trying to engage in some sort of police activity for which they were never trained, would be severely overtaxed. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics Local Police Departments 2000 publication (PDF file), the city of Chicago -- population 2.9 million at the last census -- had over 13,000 police, or roughly 47 per 10,000 residents. (A side note: Los Angeles has approximately 30% fewer police for a somewhat larger city; they must be severely undermanned. But I digress.) Chicago proper is approximately half the size of Baghdad and in a comparatively undestroyed state; therefore, the military would need a minimum of 30,000 people dedicated to policing alone. According to the CIA World Factbook, Iraq's population is approximately 24 million people (surprisingly young country, in fact -- which could also make things worse), so project that out, and you would assume that the military would need ... hey, roughly 250,000 people for policing the entire country. Which is pretty much what the general said, now isn't it? Add to that the fact that utilities are still out, much of the city was heavily damaged in the bombing, and it's still difficult to come by the everyday necessities of living; given those factors, anyone with a quarter of a functioning brain cell could predict that crime in Baghdad would explode after the war was done. Anyone with a quarter of a functioning brain cell could predict that all of this is simply sowing the seeds for a great deal of hatred directed at the US, for things that we really and truly did do and could have prevented.
One wonders how the administration will handle this. They're desperately trying to get the soldiers currently in Iraq out, both because rotation is needed and because they want to reduce the expense of the troop deployment. However, the troops are severely undermanned for the job they now face. At the same time, the administration continues to take the attitude with the UN that this is all going to be done their way, and for the most part, the UN simply shrugs and lets it go, because they don't want the expense of dealing with this either. One would assume that eventually, the adminstration and the UN will realize that in their great pissing match, they're pissing all over the people of Iraq, who asked for none of this. One would also assume that the administration won't care. In any event, hopefully, the administration and the UN will come to some understanding about how to manage this mess before too much more damage is done.
The administration is sending a new civilian administrator to Iraq, for whatever good that will do. Garner hardly had time to do anything at all; how could they possibly lay this mess at the feet of a man who had held the position less than a month and who never had the resources he needed to handle the situation? And Bremer is certainly unlikely to fare particularly well, given the response to the previous civilian administrator for reconstruction, whenever she tried to make her case: The situation in Baghdad and much of Iraq is tumultuous. "Unless we do something in the near future, it is likely to blow up in our face," one American official said. Baghdad is once again becoming a city of almost hourly eruptions of gunfire. As part of the American transition, Barbara K. Bodine, who has been in charge of reconstruction for the Baghdad region, was abruptly given notice and will be leaving within the next day or two, American officials said. Ms. Bodine, a former ambassador to Yemen, will take a senior post at the State Department, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times both reported. [...] But colleagues of Ms. Bodine said she recognized many of the problems early on and clashed repeatedly with military commanders over drastic steps she thought were needed to restore order.
"They recognized that public order had broken down in a far more serious way than they had expected," one official said of General Garner's team. As for Ms. Bodine, "Of course it was not her fault," one colleague said. "If you keep on pointing out to people the obvious, that doesn't make you very popular." One example given was Ms. Bodine's early insistence on hiring at least 50 top-flight interpreters for General Garner's staff so they could interact and communicate effortlessly with Iraqis. But even now language support remains a sore point, an official said.
(Purely a side note: despite, as noted, a desperate need for Arabic language linguists, the army continues to discharge its linguists because of their sexual orientation. You'd think that by this point, the military would be saying, "You know, if you understand Arabic and Farsi and any of those languages, we don't care who you want to sleep with. Just get yourself over here now." Apparently, maintaining the sexual purity of the military is far more important.)
Posted by iain at 01:04 PM
The entire story, since it's very brief:
Marijuana cell phone cover causes buzz. 7/5/2003. ABC (Australia) News Online: Marijuana-scented cell phone covers caused such a buzz that the company selling them had to pull them out of an technology fair in Sydney. Local authorities and New South Wales State Premier, Bob Carr, slammed the green, marijuana-motif covers as promoting drug use to young people.
"A big over-reaction," said Robert Punch, owner, chief executive and founder of Corporate Phone Covers. "It's a novelty ... you wouldn't go and buy a big block of chocolate after smelling the chocolate one," he told Reuters. Made in China and arrayed next to chocolate, strawberry, blueberry, cherry and rose-scented snap-on covers, the marijuana version sold well, though only to the over 18s, Punch said. "It sells better than the strawberry, much better," he said.
... Well, yes, I suppose it would.
One wonders just how much they were planning on this hubbub to draw attention to the phone line as a whole.
(Wouldn't smelling chocolate or fruit every single time you answered the phone become a bit much, almost immediately?)
Posted by iain at 06:36 PM
My goodness. Apparently, our Glorious Leader has entered the "piss EVERYBODY off" stage of his presidency.
Irking N.R.A., Bush Supports Ban on Assault Weapons: President Bush and the National Rifle Association, long regarded as staunch allies, find themselves unlikely adversaries over one of the most significant pieces of gun-control legislation in the last decade, a ban on semiautomatic assault weapons. At issue is a measure to be introduced by Senate Democrats on Thursday to continue the ban. Groundbreaking 1994 legislation outlawing the sale and possession of such firearms will expire next year unless Congress extends it, and many gun-rights groups have made it their top priority to fight it. Even some advocates of gun control say the prohibition has been largely ineffective because of its loopholes. Despite those concerns, the White House says Mr. Bush supports the extension of the current law.
There are also reports that the Christian Right is not well pleased with him, although they seem to have issued a denial. Of sorts.
Thing is, no matter how pissed off the right gets with him, they're probably not going to desert him. After all, where would they go? They have a graphic example of what happens when the extreme wing of a party hares off on its own in Nader and the Democrats last year; they're not likely to wish that sort of self destruction on the only party that actually panders to them.
All that said, I would imagine that if the ban passes again, Our Lord High Minister of Injustice Ashcroft will find some way to make sure it doesn't become law, or issues directives not to enforce it. After all, he has a surprisingly flexible idea of what rights are actually embodied in the Constitution, as long as actual civil rights aren't among them.
Posted by iain at 06:29 PM
After all, they could be right.
Posted by iain at 06:17 PM
ABCNEWS.com : Fast Track to New Iraq: Rebuilding Sports Teams: U.S. forces in Baghdad are hoping that good old-fashioned athletic competition -- the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat -- will help smooth the transition to democracy in Iraq. Army civil-affairs units are helping to reorganize some 20 sports clubs throughout the war-torn nation with an eye toward eventually revitalizing Iraq's Olympic sports program. The Olympic program had been headed by Saddam Hussein's elder son, Odai, who has a reputation for ruthlessness. He is said to have punished and even ordered beatings of Iraqi soccer players because they did not play well or lost key games. Although it is unlikely the U.S.-backed effort will catapult athletes into gold-medal contention at the 2004 Games, military officials hope it will help build national pride in the new Iraq.
Not that this may not be a worthwhile project eventually ... but you know, perhaps the whole "food-water-social order" thing really ought to take precedence at the moment.
"This is a high-impact, low-cost, high-result project," says Col. Vincent Foulk of the 308th Civil Affairs Brigade, an Army Reserve unit from Chicago. "The payback is just huge. It gets people back to work, and seeing sports is an indication of normality," he says. "Once you have an Iraqi team competing internationally, you have a sovereign nation and not an occupied territory."
You know ... I'm pretty sure that many Palestinians and a few of the more radical Puerto Ricans would disagree strongly with that last statement. A touring sports team is a nice symbol, I suppose, but all the soldiers wandering around the capital, occasionally shooting a few apparently rioting people in other towns, all that would seem to be a pointed, "Yes, we really ARE an occupied nation" reminder.
The soccer field is located nearly equidistant between two important buildings in downtown Baghdad. To the northeast is the charred remains of Odai's headquarters, a major power center under Saddam Hussein. The blackened and gutted structure is surrounded by a high wall adorned with the Olympic rings. To the southwest of the soccer field is the Ministry of Oil, which includes several large, modern buildings. In sharp contrast to the ruins of Odai's building, the Oil Ministry was apparently untouched by U.S. bombs or missiles. And it appears that even looters were kept away from it. U.S. officials hope the Iraqi people draw lessons from such selective targeting. Among those lessons, they say, is that America stands ready to help Iraq rebuild institutions that will assist in the liberation of Iraqis rather than in their further enslavement.
Of all the lessons one might draw from the sparing of the Oil Ministry from bombing and looters ... that it was spared to assist in the liberation of Iraqis would not be up there on the list, really.
Continuing in the sports vein, the IOC has decided to acknowledge that Iraq's previous olympic committee tortured its athletes. Big of them at this late date, isn't it? (Mind, the concept of an IOC Ethics Committee is worth a snicker in and of itself, since the word "ethics" just doesn't come to mind when you think of the IOC, now does it? At least, not in the sense of them actually having any.) In any event it's clear that the IOC just wanted to stay away from a political situation that they felt they couldn't affect. That said, stripping Iraq of its IOC recognition would have probably produced a domino effect, with various federations suspending Iraq. Granted, the athletes wouldn't have had any chance to compete internationally, but perhaps without any chance for international competition, many of them wouldn't have been tortured for not performing to Uday's expectations.
Posted by iain at 03:26 PM
Media Relations: soulsville, usa/ May 7, 2003
Posted by iain at 03:06 PM
Oh, dear. Poor Ricky. Poor, poor li'l misunderstood Ricky.
Senator in Heated Exchange With Parents of Gay Children (NY Times, May 2, 2003, registration required): Four parents of gay children had a fiery private exchange tonight with Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. The meeting did not go well, and Mr. Santorum, who has infuriated gays by likening homosexuality to incest and bigamy, left in a hurry, tripping over a chair, the parents said. "What we tried to do in this meeting was reach him on a human level, and we found no humanity there," said Melina Waldo, a former constituent of Mr. Santorum who lives in Haddonfield, N.J. She said he was "condescending, belligerent, argumentative and arrogant." [...] The meeting, with a heated exchange, ran 30 minutes, the parents said. The parents, Mrs. Kirschner said, insisted that the comments were hurtful to their children. Mr. Santorum, they said, wanted to talk about legal terms, insisting that he was just arguing against a right to privacy and that his remarks had been taken out of context.
The interesting thing is, Santorum is correct about the context of his comments. He was not originally speaking about homosexuality; the AP reporter steered it in that direction. Santorum was talking about the right to privacy itself. The plain fact is, what he actually said was even worse. He doesn't believe in a right to privacy, period. That was quite clear in the original remarks (and, indeed, in this very article). It doesn't have much, if anything, to do with anyone being gay or not; he simply feels that the government should be able to dictate everyone's private lives.
Don't believe that? Let's go to the original comments, shall we? Let's shall.
Sen. Rick Santorum's comments on homosexuality in an AP interview: [...]
SANTORUM: ... Again, it goes back to this moral relativism, which is very accepting of a variety of different lifestyles. And if you make the case that if you can do whatever you want to do, as long as it's in the privacy of your own home, this "right to privacy," then why be surprised that people are doing things that are deviant within their own home? If you say, there is no deviant as long as it's private, as long as it's consensual, then don't be surprised what you get. You're going to get a lot of things that you're sending signals that as long as you do it privately and consensually, we don't really care what you do. And that leads to a culture that is not one that is nurturing and necessarily healthy. I would make the argument in areas where you have that as an accepted lifestyle, don't be surprised that you get more of it.
AP: The right to privacy lifestyle?
SANTORUM: The right to privacy lifestyle. [...] I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts. As I would with acts of other, what I would consider to be, acts outside of traditional heterosexual relationships. And that includes a variety of different acts, not just homosexual. [...] The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire. And we're seeing it in our society.
So basically, his position is, the government absolutely has the right to dictate what you do in your bedroom. Yes, YOU, Joe and Jane "we only have missionary position heterosexual sex, no toys or anything" Smith. He's perfectly fine with, say, Alabama's ban on vibrators despite the fact that the courts have repeatedly said that Alabama simply can't do that. (He wouldn't allow the courts to say that Alabama can't do that, you see.)
All THAT said .... Santorum is, in fact, absolutely correct about the textual origination of the right to privacy. The Constitution itself makes no direct statement as to the right to privacy or any lack thereof. The Griswold v. Connecticut decision -- which seems to have been written as it was to serve the specific purpose of supporting the then-still-forthcoming Roe v. Wade decision -- states that there are rights "penumbrating" madly out from those enumerated in the Constitution; that these rights can be inferred from those in the Bill of Rights, and one of these is the right to privacy. Now, mind, I happen to think that up to a point, the Constitution's drafters may have taken the right to privacy for granted -- the fact that government agents cannot be quartered in your home without your consent, and especially the fact that they are not allowed to search your home absent a warrant and some sort of reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing would definitely imply that. But, frankly, Griswold is a wretchedly badly written decision; it's clear that the justices simply thought that Connecticut had no right to restrict access to birth control as it did, but couldn't figure out how to get there without, shall we say, a fairly elastic approach to the constitution. It almost certainly would not have been decided that way in today's Court; they most likely would simply have rejected the appeal from the state supreme court.
In any event, Santorum won't lose any position, he won't be censured by the president, and it's really a very small tempest in a very big teapot, so to speak. And all of that is, one hopes, my first and last word on l'affaire Santorum.
Posted by iain at 03:48 PM
