Big Government In Your Bedroom
OK, probably not the most romantic headline to jumpstart Valentine’s Day, but it is what it is. In this case, it’s the ostensible GOP Not-Mitt of the Moment, Rick Santorum, holding forth that while it’s a rightful abomination for the Obama administration to force religious-affiliated groups to provide employees with insurance coverage for birth control, it’s somehow acceptable for Big Government to drive public policy on contraception choices.
It’s funny depressing nearly suicidal what you’ll find with a jump in the Google machine to search Santorum and contraception. Sure there’s his recent exchange with NBC’s David Gregory, where Santorum declares:
“What I’ve talked about it with respect is my Catholic faith. I agree with the Catholic Church on the issue of contraception. But as you know, that’s a different position than I have with respect to public policy. You know, public policy, women should have access to contraception. I have no problem with that at all.”
Fine, except there’s this from last October:
One of the things I will talk about that no president has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea … Many in the Christian faith have said, “Well, that’s okay … contraception’s okay.”
It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, for purposes that are, yes, conjugal … but also procreative.
…
Again, I know most presidents don’t talk about those things, and maybe people don’t want us to talk about those things, but I think it’s important that you are who you are. I’m not running for preacher. I’m not running for pastor, but these are important public policy issues.
Er, what? No. Government should no more be setting policy on an individual’s contraception choices than it should be setting policy that mandates insurance coverage for the same.
Fill in some of the gaps from that October interview (key in around the 17:55 mark) and it’s clear that Santorum equally blurs his views on contraceptive birth control as a social/religious issue and as one that requires government intervention to address a public health issue. And that becomes a very fine and dangerous line to blur.
On the social end, Santorum says contraception is “not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, for purposes that are, yes, conjugal … but also procreative.”
And continues:
That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. We take any part of that out, we diminish the act. And if you can take one part out that’s not for purposes of procreation, that’s not one of the reasons, then you diminish this very special bond between men and women, so why can’t you take other parts of that out? And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point where it’s simply pleasure. And that’s certainly a part of it—and it’s an important part of it, don’t get me wrong—but there’s a lot of things we do for pleasure, and this is special, and it needs to be seen as special.
As a parent who teaches abstinence as a line of first and best defense, I have no problem with Santorum’s rhetoric. But that should be a choice for the parent to preach, not for government to direct. Which is where Santorum heads under the guise of a public health issue:
These have profound impact on the health of our society. I’m not talking about moral health, although clearly moral health; but I’m talking economic health, I’m talking about out-of-wedlock birth rates, sexually transmitted diseases, all these other things.
These are profound issues that we only like to talk about from a scientific point of view. But we also have to have the courage to talk about the moral aspects of it.
Talking about it is great; in fact, I’d strongly encourage parents to have that exact discussion with their kids. But when a suddenly serious challenger for the GOP presidential nod says the Oval Office should be used as bully pulpit to link public policy discussion with the inherent evils of birth control, I’ll take him at his word that he thinks it’s a legitimate role of government to push for control of contraception choices.
And that is a worrisome notion coming from the GOP’s alleged small-government conservative.
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