More On Santorum

The Light of Reason has some observations about Santorum's recent remarks about homosexuality, the Texas sodomy law now before the Supreme Court, and the role of government in our private lives:

[Reason]: Comments like those [...] make it necessary for me to repeat the point again: Santorum is not interested in merely debating a moral issue. He wants to criminalize a whole range of consensual sexual activity between adults -- and he wishes to threaten people with fines and jail sentences if they engage in sexual practices in private that he does not approve of. I repeat: Santorum is not interested in a debate -- he wants to throw people in jail. He may indeed be standing on principle, but it is the principle which ultimately underlies a dictatorship -- and it is not the principle underlying the original conception of the United States. [Emphasis added.]

11:03:49 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []  

Afternoon Sun

The day started out grim. The sky was gray and the clouds hung low, skirting the edges of the treetops. It was drizzling. The ground was wet. And the air was thick and humid.

What do you do when you're looking down the barrel of a gun? When you're standing at the edge of an abyss the bottom of which you cannot see? This morning was that kind of morning. The kind that makes you groan. The kind that makes you stay in bed.

As the day wore on, the man sat by his window, in front of his computer monitor, wondering about the day and the next and the next one after that. The open window brought no breeze. Gazing out brought no relief.

Yet by time afternoon came, the clouds had lifted and the sun shone brightly in the western sky. The breeze was cool as it blew over his typing hands. Shadows of ash leaves danced on his desktop.

Miracles happen everyday when our eyes are opened wide enough to see them. Sometimes they are little, sometimes they are small. Sometimes the sun coming out is just enough.

And as he sat there, in the breeze, amid the dancing ash leaf shadows, with the yawning abyss behind him, he remembered how yesterday he had walked past a van in a parking lot. A man was loading groceries, loading groceries for another man sitting in a wheelchair, another man who had no legs, who held his wheels tightly to keep from rolling back downhill. The second man was smiling as he told the first man where to put the bags.

He sat there and remembered this. And the miracle of the sun cast away all his shadows.

6:19:31 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []  

It's Not About Homosexuality

Robin Goodfellow has a few observations about sodomy laws and the recent remarks of the esteemed Senator Santorum:

[Goodfellow]: Nobody expects these laws to actually be enforced fairly if they are enforced at all, they expect them to be enforced rather unfairly, against homosexuals and homosexuals alone. [...] These laws are a way to specifically target homosexuals while pretending, as Sen. Santorum does, to be concerned about other issues.

The problem with this is that Senator Santorum is not pretending about anything. He's dead serious. And the certainty with which he holds his views make this an issue that goes far beyond the pro/anti-gay color with which this issue has been painted.

Andrew Sullivan has [written] [a] [lot] on the Santorum statements. Anyone interested in understanding this issue should read him.

[Sullivan/Slippery Slope]: Where do we draw the line in policing private sexual behavior? [...] Do I think it should be a crime for a man to have sex with two women at once? Or an orgy? Nope. It's none of mine or the state's business. And that applies to having live-in long-term girlfriends, or any other type of consenting private relationship people might want. (Emphasis added.)

This is the real issue at root here -- an issue that no one seems to be discussing much, besides Sullivan.

Santorum is unapologetic about his view that the state can and should criminalize private behavior that conflicts with his own personal notions of correct-family-values.

This isn't about homosexuality, and illuminating Santorum's comments exclusively in that light (a light that many heterosexuals will be too tempted to ignore, since they perceive that it doesn't concern them) obscures the truly frightening scope of government as seen by many in the far right wing.
8:08:48 AM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []