Privacy, of course, will be next to go

"The reason the judiciary has been able to impose a separation of church and state that’s nowhere in the Constitution is that Congress didn’t stop them. The reason we had judicial review is because Congress didn’t stop them. The reason we had a right to privacy is because Congress didn’t stop them." [Tom DeLay, 13Apr05]

The Fundagelical controlled Republican party will work hard as the seek to ensure return to the days of John Cotton. Like the Puritans, the Fundagelicals understand that privacy is a threat to iron-fisted control.

Outlaw of things like hormonal contraception & abortion (as well as HPV vaccination for females) that can help a sexually immoral female avoid easy detection will improve detection and punishment of these women, but privacy enables the Jezebels who are most fastidious & the sexual deviants escape paying pennance. Laying claim there is no right to privacy so that the average person without power or connection has no recourse when it is invaded allows those with power to peer into our homes, review our medical records and/or take samples from our bodies to detect (or create) evidence to be used against "undesirables." The sins of the undesirables will be amplified in the public realm while those in the privileged class will be protected for the most part, lay claim all is a conspiracy against them and, at worst, get a slap on the wrist (Bill Clinton lying about being blown by Monica Lewinsky was considered a heinous impeachable offense, a judge ruling on case law instead of as directed by political leadership has also been bandied about as an impeachable or worse offense and lying to initiate a war that'd been planned for some time won't get a fundagelical President anything but a little bad press). Without the right or privilege of privacy, the government can do anything it damn well pleases, based on whim rather than reason.

And 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 polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution, this right that was created, it was created in Griswold — Griswold was the contraceptive case — and abortion. And now we're just extending it out.
. . .
I've been very clear about that. The right to privacy is a right that was created in a law that set forth a (ban on) rights to limit individual passions. And I don't agree with that. [Rick Santorum, 23Apr03]

Santorum's use of depravative logic aside, statements from Republican leadership indicating there is no right to privacy and their fight to enact legislation with no presumptive neutrality of religion seems remarkably similar to the German government in 1933 (especially considering the "Patriot Act"). While those who engage in sexual immorality (women & gays) are the first, most obvious & easiest targets, Catholics and others who currently support the Fundagelical movement may want to review what the Puritans and Nazis thought of them and take heed. Without those fundamental right to privacy they may find themselves next to be scrutinized and they'll have no place to hide.


Tags: religion; contraception; abortion; reproductive rights; fundamentalism; privacy;DeLay; Santorum; hypocrisy; gay

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