In 1928, United states Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote In Olmstead v. United States, which authorized the government to engage in wiretapping telephone calls, that;
“…the makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings and his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred as against the Government, the right to be let alone-the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men…”
Almost a century has passed since Brandeis offered that observation and very little of it is taken to heart today.
During his campaign for the presidency, John F. Kennedy was required to defend the right of a Roman Catholic to seek that office. It was generally viewed as the most eloquent defense against religious intolerance up to that time.
Since Kennedy’s appearance before the Houston Ministerial Alliance, religious intolerance has not only grown but has crept into the body politic to an alarming degree.
So-called “evangelical Christians” have all but taken over the Republican Party and have tried to legislate their own “moral “code into law.
Last year, Planned Parenthood was the subject of a heavily doctored video in which it was alleged to be selling dead fetuses.
Despite the fact that investigations demonstrated that the video was bogus and its creators were prosecuted, defunding Planned Parenthood became a campaign issue in the 2016 elections.
Provisions to defund it were written into the legislation designed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
While the legislation wasn’t enacted, its failure had nothing to do with this provision. Indeed, it was in the bill which passed in the House of Representatives but died in the Senate.
Defunding Planned Parenthood isn’t about opposition to abortion. The Hyde Amendment passed in 1977 prohibited Medicaid funding for abortions even if the life of the mother is at risk.
Defunding Planned Parenthood curtails funds which underwrite family planning, contraception and even services such as mammograms and other cancer screening tests.
Perhaps one of the most unconsidered factors in all of this, is that Planned Parenthood provides services for men too.
This fact never comes up in Congress or on the campaign trail when the issue of defunding the organization comes up.
Congress evidently believes that the right to privacy is reserved for only one gender.
During the last two winters, we spent a month in Asheville, North Carolina.
North Carolina, it will be remembered, had passed legislation that forbade transgendered people from using public bathrooms that didn’t correspond with their gender at birth.
It also forbade cities and towns from enacting local anti-discrimination ordinances.
The state was subject to numerous boycotts. Concerts, conventions and sporting events were cancelled. Those inflicted widespread damage to the tourist and convention industry amounting to 3.7 billion dollars.
Ultimately the Governor, Pat McCrory, who sponsored the legislation was defeated and the law was repealed.
Vice-President Pence was similarly burned on this issue when, as Governor of Indiana, he signed into law a measure that would allow service providers to refuse service to the LGBT community on “religious grounds.”
He too repealed the law when the NCAA threatened to leave Indianapolis and not schedule any sporting events in the State and other boycotts loomed.
One would think that any state government contemplating wading into this morass would learn from these experiences.
Texas has not.
Texas is led by Governor Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick.
The only two people I can think of that are as intolerant as these two, are Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, and ISIS leader Abu Bakar Al Baghdadi.
Patrick, who controls the legislative process, has proposed defunding Planned Parenthood, imposing requirements on hospitals and health clinics that would force those offering comparable health care services to Planned Parenthood to close and a law that would forbid transgendered people to use restrooms that correspond to their gender identity at birth.
Proponents of these laws always justify them as measures which protect women and girls from being sexually assaulted by rapists masquerading as transgendered people despite the fact there has never been a reported incident of such a crime.
When the National Football League reacted to the “bathroom bill,” cautioning Texas that it could cost the state a future Super Bowl and other problems if enacted, Governor Abbott retorted that the League should “concentrate on football and stay the hell out of politics.”
He might better consider “staying the hell” out of matters as private as someone’s birth gender and the restroom they need to use.
If he and Patrick persist in this discriminatory enactment, they will almost certainly cost Texas billions in lost tourism.
That would be a very costly way to learn that you have to honor the right of people to be left alone.
Stay tuned.