Santorum Proves to be Prophetic

Jeff Jacoby writes at The Boston Globe:

Lawful incest may be on its way

WHEN THE BBC invited me onto one of its talk shows recently to talk about the day's hot topic -- legalizing adult incest -- I thought of Rick Santorum.

Back in 2003, as the Supreme Court was preparing to rule in Lawrence v. Texas, a case challenging the constitutionality of laws criminalizing homosexual sodomy, then-Senator Santorum caught holy hell for warning out that if the law were struck down, there would be no avoiding the slippery slope.

"If the Supreme Court says you have the right to consensual sex within your home," he told a reporter, "then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."

It was a common-sensical observation, though you wouldn't have known it from the nail-spitting it triggered in some quarters. When the justices, voting 6-3, did in fact declare it unconstitutional for any state to punish consensual gay sex, the dissenters echoed Santorum's point. "State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are . . . called into question by today's decision," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the minority. Now, Time magazine acknowledges: "It turns out the critics were right."

Time's attention, like the BBC's, has been caught by the legal battles underway to decriminalize incest between consenting adults. An article last month by Time reporter Michael Lindenberger titled "Should Incest Be Legal?" highlights the case of Paul Lowe, an Ohio man convicted of incest for having sex with his 22-year-old stepdaughter. Lowe has appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court, making Lawrence the basis of his argument. In Lawrence, the court had ruled that people "are entitled to respect for their private lives" and that under the 14th Amendment, "the state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime." If that was true for the adult homosexual behavior in Lawrence, why not for the adult incestuous behavior in the Ohio case?

[More]

My Comments:
The reason people like Santorum make these slippery slope arguments is because they know how Supreme Court precedent works.

Once Justice Kennedy's "sweet mystery of life" becomes enshrined in the Constitution* - once the basis for constitutional jurisprudence has been defined thusly: "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's concept of existence, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life" - there is little room left for drawing lines.

And so, moral distinctions that exist not only in Natural Law, but have formed the foundation for the moral order of societies for thousands of years, get tossed by the wayside in favor of results-oriented outcomes that reflect the personal preferences of the majority of 9 unelected and life-tenured Supreme Court justices.


* It should be noted that, although he voted to uphold the ban on partial-birth abortion in writing the majority opinion in Carhart, Kennedy nevertheless reaffirmed his own commitment to his "sweet mystery of life" jurisprudence first formulated in Planned Parenthood v. Casey and reiterated in Lawrence v. Texas.


UPDATE
I've read the words "It's all Bush's fault" in a lot of differenct contexts, but this is a new one on me. Apparently, Bush is responsible for the fact that legalized incest is on the horizon. At least that seems to be the point of this seemingly unrelated commentary.

Now, I could almost see shifting some blame to Ronald Reagan for the prospect of constitutionally protected incest, given that he's the one who nominated that asshat Kennedy. But Bush?

I understand Mark's disdain for the Bush Administration and those who are apologists for torture. But I think Mark is reaching in this bit of commentary. The Supreme Court had us heading down this road long before anyone was arguing for making torture a "Western value". Quite honestly, I don't get the connection Mark is trying to make here.