I never have watched the TLC channel program, Sister Wives, about the Brown family of Utah – Kody Brown, his four wives and their sixteen children. I stopped watching TLC when it went from being a relatively sane if boring educational channel to a channel with programs like “I’m a Big Fat Pus Bag” or “My Mom Sold me to Dwarves”. But apparently this show was a pretty popular and not completely absurd showcase of the polygamist life style – one that seems incredibly taxing for the man and sort of unsatisfying for the women but a choice with a long, if outlaw tradition in the West. It is not true, however, that it was sponsored by Cialis and had a commercial showing the guy and his wives in a daisy chain of hand holding in five claw-foot bath tubs staring at the snowy Wasatch Range. That was just a rumor.
As polygamy is against the law in Utah, it turns out that the Browns intended that the show would result in prosecution or an investigation by Utah authorities and give them an opportunity to challenge the Utah law in court on the basis that prosecution of polygamists is an unconstitutional breach of their right to privacy – a test case. Personally I think this is a great idea – there is far too much biblical moralizing and brain-dead religiosity in this country and high time to confront it head on. That’s all well and good. Have at it.
What interested me, however, was the supreme court case upon which they were preparing to base their suit – Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark supreme court decision from 2003 overturning Texas’ anti-sodomy law. Sodomy laws, and indeed, all of the various laws prohibiting sexual conduct between consenting adults are unsupportable on their face – Alabama’s law against sex toys, Milner v. Apfel, a law which stated that legislatures are “permitted to legislate with regard to morality”, and a Maryland law that actually holds, “a person has no constitutional right to engage in sexual intercourse, at least outside of marriage”, a ridiculously blatant spit in the eye of the separation between church and state. And that’s the real point – there is no place for high-minded, if well intentioned, moralistic notions based on the Christian bible to instruct the laws of this country.
The court sided in favor of the accused in Lawrence v. Texas by a margin of 6-3. The dissent was largely authored by Antonin “Don’t touch my butt” Scalia, who thunders on and on like Abraham come down from the mountain with the divine word of god in hand to smite the damned fornicators with a righteous wrath. He goes on for a very long time with, “the court, blah, blah, blah, sodomy, blah,blah,blah blah, homosexuals, blah, blah, sodomy, blah, blah, sodomy, blah blah, blah.” Early in the dissent he throws in this sentence which nicely summarizes the problem; “State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers' validation of laws based on moral choices.” LAWS BASED ON MORAL CHOICES! Maybe they shouldn't be sustainable. Bowers was a case that was also thrown out by the majority, thereby rendering it ineffective in bolstering the case against the Texas gay couple in Lawrence.
Throughout his dissent, Scalia refers to a long tradition of society disapproving of various sexual acts and practices as an entirely reasonable basis upon which to continue to arrest and criminalize citizens who engage in them. I don’t know about Antonin himself but if we can all get arrested for jerking off they better start building more jails this morning.
Recently Michael Krazny, host of Forum on KQED public radio in San Francisco, wrote a column in the San Francisco Chronicle, opining that the use of religion as a political bludgeon was declining in the country, and pointed to the growing acceptance of gay marriage as his principle evidence but when 1st century biblical morays are fundamental to the entire legal structure of the country, I am not so sure. There are still countless examples of politicians wielding their own old testament ideas of morality and holding them out as a call to arms for fellow believers to take back the country from the sinners and…well, liberals, who have co-opted it and stolen their children’s birthright. Never mind that they often end up with their pants around their ankles in some seedy motel or that some of those very children are likely gay themselves. It almost always pays to flaunt religiosity in public life and the culture renders suspect anyone who doesn’t.
The sputtering fury evident beneath the surface of Scalia’s dissent – and he does insert the Seinfeldian phrase, “I have nothing against homosexuals myself” – begs the question; do we really want someone on the court who bases their decisions, not on common sense or societal evolution over 200 + years, but on the old testament? I don't. Is this what the right rfers to as a "strict constructionist"?
In a rare break with their standard hand-holding, Scalia and his half-wit sidekick Clarence “Crickets” Thomas did not dissent together, although Thomas did dissent. He apparently couldn’t get himself worked up into the same froth as Tony – his randy, inappropriate, women-harassing past may have prevented him from doing so. He satisfied himself by saying that he thought the Texas law against sodomy was “silly” but he defended the state’s right to put it on the books regardless, a simpleminded opinion that begs discussion another time.
So I am hoping that the Brown Family – all 21 of them – march into court together and make a compelling and cogent argument that a guy having four wives is no biggie. After all, plenty of guys have had four wives – hell, Sinatra had four. It just usually isn’t all at once. But hey, it’s a lifestyle.
No comments:
Post a Comment