Republicans Want to Use the Government to Police Our Bedrooms
Armed with newfound state powers, they’re coming to regulate our sex lives—one law at a time
I hate to say I told you so.
After a stunning zenith to the half-century-long battle to overturn Roe V. Wade, a pinnacle that ended in a surprise victory for the GOP at the expense of women and individuals all over America, the party is now openly flirting with anti-contraception, anti-sodomy, and anti-LGBTQ laws.
Emboldened by the disorienting decision to overturn Roe V. Wade, more outspoken members of the Republican Party and various conservative movements have begun saying the quiet parts out loud.
It reads like dystopian fiction—but it’s real-world in America.
The designer of Texas’ newfangled and overbearing anti-abortion law, Jonathan Mitchell, has made a rapid pivot, setting LGBTQ marriage in his crosshairs. You know the law. It’s the one that asks everyday citizens to spy on their neighbors and turns ordinary civilians into bounty hunters.
A few days ago, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton signaled favor for putting anti-sodomy laws back on the books. He’s explicitly stated he’s “willing and able” to defend sodomy law and punish adults for having consensual sex in the privacy of their homes.
He mentioned Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in the recent Supreme Court case that overturned Roe V. Wade, Dobbs V. Jackson, when Thomas said we need to revisit a plethora of older cases that guaranteed Americans substantive rights, such as the right to marry who you want, the right to privacy, and yes, the right to have sex with whomever you want.
Clarence Thomas explicitly mentioned Lawrence V. Texas, a 2003 Supreme Court decision that restricted states from criminalizing same-sex relationships—we’re not even talking about marriage, here, we’re talking about relationships and sex.
Even the kind of sex you’d have alone by yourself won’t be spared.
J.D. Vance, an outspoken Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Ohio, said that pornography should be outright banned. The statement took place during an interview with a religious magazine, so it’s not something he said trying to “own the libs” in the media spotlight or on Twitter.
It’s a strange world where journalists like me have to clarify whether a candidate or member of Congress wasn’t lying to provoke an inflamed response from the other side and garner headline attention.
Vance called pornography a “public health crisis” yet, there is no credible scientific reason to believe this.
Another Candidate for the U.S. Senate, Blake Masters of Arizona, said the only way he’d vote for future Supreme Court Justice nominations was if they expressed an inclination to overturn decisions that granted us the right to contraceptives.
Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union Oni Blair told the Washington Post, “We need to recognize that nothing is off the table at this moment. All of our rights and liberties—from LGBTQ equality, voting, and even contraception—could be at risk.”
They’re slowly chipping away at the foundations of our democracy and telling us not to panic as the floor begins crumbling beneath our feet. Even January 6th, a blatant attempt at overthrowing the U.S. Government, has been downplayed as if it were just an ordinary protest that went slightly awry.
Conservative superstar and Fox News host Sean Hannity has expressed his support for the repeal of such protections and for States to enact anti-contraception and anti-LGBTQ laws. He says that it’s “the most democratic for our democratic Republic.”
If we look at history, conservative, far-right-wing extremist forces have always wanted to use the Government to police our sex lives. From the century America banned condoms to IUD bans, abortion bans, LGBTQ relationship bans, sodomy bans (even among heterosexuals), LGBTQ marriage bans, sex education bans, and contraception bans, the battle over Roe unfolded in a larger narrative.
It was never about babies—it was about policing sex.
The Republican Party of “small government” championed State's Rights as a way to get “big government” off your back, when, in reality, they wanted to use state governments to police our bedrooms.
It was a Trojan horse designed to affect law changes at the highest reaches of our Federal Government to allow them the right to oppress us at the state level. For that, they needed a few more Supreme Court Justices which Donald Trump provided.
To be clear, only a small minority of the Republican Party actually wants these policies. But that minority is both loud and in charge.
In Georgia, a traditionally Republican state in the deep south, 68% think Roe V. Wade should not have been repealed. In Florida, 71% of the people think Roe V. Wade should not have been repealed. Even in Republican strongholds, this move is deeply unpopular.
It’s impossible to pile all of these various instances together and not conclude it’s a coordinated assault on sexual rights and bodily autonomy consistent with the 350 years of sexual oppression in America’s history.
Some of us could see these catastrophes coming from a mile away.
When we tried to tell you. We were mocked. We were silenced. It’s a trope of political oppressors, one of many employed to erode your rights slowly. They tell you that you’re overreacting as they slowly whittle away at your legal protections.
One question keeps floating across my mind: what government deprives the rights of its citizens instead of fortifying them?
A government that’s gone so rogue that it can only be described as authoritarian, that’s who.
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Some books that I highly recommend checking out:
Wild Connection: What Animal Courtship and Mating Teaches Us about Human Relationships by Jennifer L. Verdolin
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley
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