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Lifestyle Choices Apply Only to Sexual
Behavior By Doug Patton Years
ago, after watching a science fiction movie called “Gattaca,” I remember my
wife commenting that it was not realistic to think that the film’s characters
would be allowed the great sexual freedom depicted while all their other
activities were being so closely monitored and restricted. I disagreed. That is
exactly the direction we are headed, I told her.
I
have thought for some time that Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” is much
closer to reality than George Orwell’s “1984.” I believe the last years of
the 20th century and the first few of the 21st have proven me right. In
“1984,” Winston Smith and his lover, Julia, are forced to meet in
clandestine places for fear of discovery by “Big Brother” – the
euphemistic term given the repressive, all-intrusive government of “Oceana,”
one of the world’s three gargantuan superpowers – which forbids such
relationships. No such repression exists in today’s world outside of the 7th
century mentality of fanatical Third World Islam. In
Huxley’s novel, however, procreation has become a function of test tubes, and
genetic manipulation has become the order of the day. “Motherhood” has
become a dirty word and human beings are viewed as creatable, malleable and
disposable. Meanwhile, the recreational misuse of sex and drugs is freely and
openly encouraged. That is where we find ourselves today. As
proof, I offer up the strange cultural dichotomy at work in government and in
corporate America. Sexual pleasure has been elevated to a “right,” while
other personal freedoms are being eradicated. The silly idea of covering Viagra
and other sex-enhancing recreational drugs in the already bloated Medicare
prescription drug program is proof that this issue is out of control. Moreover,
at a time when some very dangerous personal behaviors are being encouraged and
lauded as “lifestyle choices,” others are now deemed worthy of statutory
penalty or even cause for dismissal from one’s employment. No
greater example of this phenomenon exists than the current governmental and
corporate attitudes toward homosexual promiscuity and cigarette smoking. In
recent years, federal, state and local entities have been clamoring to create
laws that forbid “discrimination” against individuals who engage in
homosexual acts. The most blatant of these actions was the 2003 decision by the
U.S. Supreme Court known as “Lawrence vs. Texas,” wherein the court struck
down the state’s anti-sodomy laws, thereby creating an individual
constitutional “right” to engage in homosexual behavior. This decision has
ushered in an onslaught of brazen attempts in various parts of the country –
most notably in San Francisco and New York – to challenge the very definition
of marriage. Meanwhile,
governmental authorities have made cigarette smoking increasingly difficult,
even as these same bodies collect revenue from the very addicted smokers they
are ostracizing. But
the most blatant hypocrisy in this area is in corporate America. Today,
companies large and small are rushing to offer spousal insurance benefits to
homosexual couples while telling smokers in their employ that they must quit or
face dismissal from their jobs because they are jeopardizing their health and
driving up the cost of health insurance. All this, despite the fact that the
link between homosexual behavior and AIDS has been well established for more
than two decades. Now,
from New York City, comes news of a promiscuous homosexual carrying a virulent
new strain of HIV. This new form of the deadly virus is resistant to all known
drug therapies and progresses to full-blown AIDS in a matter of months. Those
of you in leadership positions in government and in corporate America should
consider this new AIDS case very carefully. While you are threatening to
hard-working family men and women with pink slips because they smoke a cigarette
in the privacy of their own homes, you may be insuring the “domestic
partner” of this man with the new strain of AIDS. Or perhaps you are giving
benefits to the “significant other” of one of the hundreds of men he has no
doubt infected. Put your actuaries to work calculating what that will do to your
insurance rates. Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a speechwriter, policy advisor and communications director for federal, state and local candidates, elected officials and public policy organizations. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet websites. Readers can e-mail him at [email protected].
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