Thursday, August 30, 2007

Should Government Stay out of the Bathroom? Or Should Men Like Larry Craig Just Get a Room?

The LA Times has two great op-ed articles on the topic of Larry Craig. One article is penned by Reason Magazine Editor Nick Gillespie who argues that Republicans should use this moment as an opportunity to return to their small-government roots. Essentially, Gillespie adds public restrooms to the list of places government should stay out of. Meanwhile, David Ehrenstein does not have a problem with Craig's homsexuality (or bisexuality), but rather his decision to have sex in a public place. To Ehrenstein, the senator's decision to solicit sex in a public restroom runs against everything the gay movement is fighting for today. "Today's gays want to get married," he writes, "and an airport men's room is no place to propose." He finishes his article saying "never has the admonition "Get a room!" seemed more apropos. It's up to the I'm-not-gay(s) to discover the real freedoms fought for and won by the people they so fiercely claim they're not."

2 comments:

Kristina said...

After spending the last two weeks of criminal procedure dealing with the fourth amendment and privacy issues, my 2 cents:

A) Yes, there should be some right to privacy in bathrooms. meaning, police shouldn't be able to just bust into a bathroom stall or even tap the wall of a bathroom. HOWEVER,

B) If one solicits sex to the person in the next stall, he has no expectation of privacy because he has purposely availed himself to the public (person in next stall) AND

C) Places should be able to have laws prohibiting hetero/homsexual sex in a public bathroom for hygiene purpose.

Kristina said...

btw, I generally agree with the sentiments that the Republican party should go back to respecting privacy, I just meant to say using public bathrooms as an example is silly.