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ACLU Flushes Social Order, Common Sense

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By LUIS VIERA

Published: February 6, 2008

The American Civil Liberties Union has sunk civil liberties advocacy to a new low in its argument before the Minnesota Court of Appeals on behalf of Republican Sen. Larry Craig.

According to the ACLU, persons who have or solicit sex in a public restroom have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Thus, under this argument, even if Sen. Craig did invite the undercover officer to engage in sex in the airport restroom, his actions were not criminal.

Is this what civil liberties advocacy has sunken to? Note, I am a proud believer in civil liberties and the Constitution as a living document that encompasses freedom of religion, equality for all persons and the Right to Privacy. America at its core is a nation of expanding liberty that acknowledges progress intolerance, pluralism and understanding.

Therefore, I disagree with conservatives who see this argument in defense of Sen. Craig's right to solicit sex acts in a public restroom as a natural extension of the supposedly misguided right to privacy. Rather, this argument is a natural extension of the almost anarchistic ACLU-sponsored campaign against an idea on which it has largely lost over the last few decades in political debate: public order.

Starting in the late 1960s, organizations like the ACLU demanded a removal of any restraint favoring public order. This is the mentality that gave us the New York City subway system, in which public malcontents were allowed to harass others and even publicly urinate in the name of free speech and association, and the "art" of public graffiti.

Social condemnation of criminal actions was seen as socially repressive, and the only value worth keeping was the value of tolerating once-deviant acts. Soon, a new mentality in civil liberties advocacy arose, defined by the trio of the "liberal chic," paternalism and moral relativism. Deviancy, as the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan remarked, was defined down to accommodate the new wisdom of liberation.

As a result, not only did the public's confidence in many of our civil liberties organizations plummet, but the association of these groups, however incidental, with liberalism caused a long string of Republican governments that exploited the backlash against this insanity.

And this brings us to the public restroom issue and public order. The ACLU would have us believe that it is our God-given right to go to a public restroom and solicit sex. Frankly, as one of those pesky parents who naturally worries about things like this, I believe it makes sense to have government stand on the side of parents and against people with seemingly uncontrollable libidos in public restrooms.

Sen. Craig has no "reasonable expectation" of privacy in situation like this. The only "reasonable expectation" is that of parents and others who expect public restrooms to be places where there is only flushing of toilets and washing of hands, nothing more.

Simply put, the Constitution protects our right to engage in some of the most enlightened and yet despicable actions possible, but solicitation of sex in a public restroom is not one of them. It is long past time for the mainstream wing of the civil liberties movement to reclaim its territory.

Luis Viera is a Tampa attorney.

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