Kieran Healy

Posted
23 April 2003 @ 5pm

Santorum

It’s been interesting to watch the fallout from Senator Rick Santorum’s priceless interview about homosexuality, the “right-to-privacy lifestyle” and, um, sex with dogs. Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias pick up on some of the important bits.

The Volokhs have made some interesting contributions. Head conspirator Eugene Volokh went to some lengths to dismiss the outrage over Santorum’s comments as ‘a faux scandal’. In the course of his argument he made it clear that, on his view, even something like incest should not be illegal if both parties consent. This shows an admirable consistency in his libertarian-consequentialist way of thinking, though unsurprisingly it appalled some of his readers. In his defence, Eugene insists that the issue is whether people should be sent to jail for disgusting act x, and not whether act x is disgusting to most people.

Jacob Levy argued (and reiterated) that Eugene’s efforts to make Santorum sound like a very good constitutional scholar—i.e., sound like Eugene himself—were mistaken. Santorum, he thought, was just “expressing, and inflaming, ugly, bigoted views about homosexuality.”

The difference between their reactions is interesting. Jacob immediately grasped the political subtext of the remarks. As he says himself, Santorum “gets to say ‘homosexuality’ in the same breath as ‘incest,’” and then escape by sayiing “he was just offering a lawyer’s argument about the implications of the Supreme Court case.” By contrast, Eugene parsed the comments like a lawyer and stepped up to provide the very argument Jacob mentioned. I think Jacob has the right read on this.

Getting defended by someone as smart as Eugene Volokh is a good deal more than Santorum deserves. Though I have to say I’ve noticed before that Eugene has a bit of a cloth ear when it comes to political discourse. (It can’t be that he’s just being obtuse: Anyone who’ll cheerfully defend the legalization of incest in public can’t be too concerned with making politically smart choices.) This willingness to follow the argument where it goes, and not be distracted by considerations of public opinion, is of course a very good quality for a legal scholar or judge to have, though I think it leads him to give far too much credit to people like Santorum. In this respect, I think of Eugene as something like the blogosphere’s Jeremy Bentham. He’s endlessly clever and wholly relentless in following good ideas to sometimes inadvisable pushpin-and-poetry conclusions. (Unlike Bentham, of course, he doesn’t believe that the doctrine of rights is nonsense upon stilts.)

On the substantive issue—the homosexuality/incest thing—I wonder whether any enterprising political theorists or philosophers will take on the idea that autonomy and informed consent are the beginning and end of arguments about permissibility in this area. Onora O’Neill’s That’s not my department, though. Jacob? Chris?

8 Comments

Posted by
Matthew Yglesias
23 April 2003 @ 4pm

I’m reading Professor Levy’s book right now and while he has a (somewhat qualified) defense of polygyny, he doesn’t seem to take on the incest question. My sense, though, is that his theory would have to say that consensual incest between adults shouldn’t be banned as long as some reasonably large number of people wants to engage in it.

Posted by
Jacob T. Levy
23 April 2003 @ 6pm

(Politely ignoring bait)

“Cloth ear”? Is that Irish for “tin ear?” I’ve never heard it before.

Posted by
Kieran Healy
23 April 2003 @ 7pm

(Politely ignoring bait)

(Looking around innocently.) Bait? What bait?

“Cloth ear”? Is that Irish for “tin ear?” I’ve never heard it before.

Yes, I mean tin ear.

Posted by
ogged
24 April 2003 @ 10am

I can’t figure out what Eugene is thinking on this issue. I emailed him:

“Only by assuming that Santorum is making strictly legal remarks can one justify the generosity by which you grant that Santorum likely meant consensual bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery. Read as a political statement, its much more likely that he was using the fact that those four are usually not consensual and therefore reprehensible to draw a false moral equivalence between them and homosexual acts.”

And he emailed back simply (granted, he gets a lot of email…):

“I don’t think that’s right, for all the reasons I mentioned in my original post; among other things, polygamy is usually consensual.”

Posted by
ogged
24 April 2003 @ 10am

I can’t figure out what Eugene is thinking on this issue. I emailed him:

And he emailed back simply (granted, he gets a lot of email…):

“I don’t think that’s right, for all the reasons I mentioned in my original post; among other things, polygamy is usually consensual.”

Posted by
John Isbell
24 April 2003 @ 3pm

Nice Bentham analogy. The point about incest, as I said on MY’s site, is that in the vast majority of cases, it is not between consensual adults. That is why the very word is explosive.
Compare this: “Bush is Hitler! (I’m referring to their dress sense).” Except of course that Santorum left off the proviso.
The time bomb that will, I think, kill him is his answer to the reporter’s question about the recent Catholic Church scandal. Santorum maintains that the victims were “basically” consenting homosexual men. “We’re not talking 3- or 5-year-olds.” The second sentence is unfortunate, since in reality, one victim was 4 and one was 7. I think Santorum is dead and doesn’t know it yet.

Posted by
George W. Bush
29 April 2003 @ 2pm

Tired of our Gov’t morons? Get even?

It worked for the Spam King, so why not do the same to the morons
who now want to control our lives?

Send them junk mail! And lots of it!

Got a postal mail address on someone? There are thousands of sites
willing to send free samples, bibles, pamphlets, sales catalogs, so
load up a proxy, fill out a form and send that governmental moron a
message from the people. Do you get packets of coupons? Wear
gloves and fill out a few in the name of your favorite governmental
person who has done so much to screw over the American way of
life. Have a way to add someone to a telemarketer list? Do it.
Here are a few addresses and phone numbers to start off with.

George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
(877) 200-4899

John and Linda Poindexter
10 Barrington Fare
Rockville, MD 20850
(301) 424-6613

Attorney General John Ashcroft
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D. C. 20530
Office of Public Affairs
(202) 616 – 2777

The Honorable (insert senators name)
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

But dont stop there. SHARE, SHARE, SHARE! Got Bushs private
Crawford address? Post it. And dont stop with the top dogs, is
there a DA in your area stomping on human rights? Is your state rep,
mayor, state judge, or any other governmental person been doing some
shady backroom deals? Are you paying for it? Oh, wait, if you are
paying taxes, then I suppose you are! Post those address too. The
more the merrier and hopefully with enough anonymous speech by the
people, they might wake up and realize WE are not very happy and WE
can make their lives as much hell as they are making ours.

If you are going to waste my tax dollars, at least I get a say
in how they uselessly get spent,

Power to the People.

Old, but a few more striped from other posts:

*=========================*
Senate Judiciary Committee

*=========================*

Democrats

Senator Patrick Leahy, Ranking Member
433 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-4242
Email: senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov

Senator Edward Kennedy
315 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-4543
Email address: Go to http://www.senate.gov/~kennedy/main.cfm?whichpage=email&whichmenu=1

Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
221 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-5042
Email: senator@biden.senate.gov

Senator Herb Kohl (Wisconsin)
330 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-5653
Email: senator_kohl@kohl.senate.gov

Senator Dianne Feinstein (California)
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-3841
Email: senator@feinstein.senate.gov

Senator Russell Feingold (Wisconsin)
716 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-4904
(202) 224-5323
Email address: Go to http://www.senate.gov/~feingold/services/contactrdf.html

Senator Robert Torricelli (New Jersey)
113 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-3224
Email address: Go to http://www.senate.gov/~torricelli

Senator Charles Schumer (New York)
313 Hart Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-6542
Email: senator@schumer.senate.gov

Republicans

Senator Orrin Hatch, Chairman (Utah)
131 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
202/224-5251
Email: senator_hatch@hatch.senate.gov

Senator Strom Thurmond (South Carolina)
217 Russell Senate Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-5972
Email: senator@thurmond.senate

Senator Chuck Grassley (Iowa)
125 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-3744
Email address: Go to http://www.senate.gov/~grassley/webform.htm

Senator Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania)
711 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-4254
Email: senator_specter@specter.senate.gov

Senator Jon Kyl (Arizona)
724 Hart Senate Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-4521
Email address: Go to http://www.senate.gov/~kyl/con_form.htm

Senator Mike DeWine (Ohio)
140 Russell Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-2315
Email address: Go to http://www.senate.gov/~dewine/request_form.html

Senator Jeff Sessions (Alabama)
493 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-4124
Email address: Go to http://www.senate.gov/~sessions

Senator Bob Smith (New Hampshire)
307 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
202-224-2841
Email: opinion@smith.senate.gov

Or if you just wish to email your Senators

AL
Jeff Sessions
Senator@sessions.senate.gov

Richard C. Shelby
Senator@shelby.senate.gov

AK
Frank H. Murkowski
email@murkowski.senate.gov

Ted Stevens
Senator_stevens@stevens.senate.gov

AZ
Jon Kyl
Info@kyl.senate.gov

John McCain
Senator_mccain@mccain.senate.gov

AR
Tim Y. Hutchinson
Senator_hutchinson@hutchinson.senate.gov

Blanche Lambert Lincoln

CA
Barbara Boxer
Senator@boxer.senate.gov

Dianne Feinstein
Senator@feinstein.senate.gov