A Matter of Privacy

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				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
A Matter of Privacy				August 22, 2001

At the end the last General Assembly, Gov. Gilmore vetoed a bill that would have allowed cameras to be installed at intersections with stoplights, and this ostensibly because he concluded that issues of privacy outweighed the safety factors involved. At first glance, the governor’s decision might seem to be somewhat cavalier, since the trend these days, despite Reagan’s dictum that the Republican Party wants to get “government off the backs of the people,” is toward the erosion of privacy rights.

For instance, legislators this year had no problem with further intruding into the relationship between a woman and her doctor when they passed a bill requiring waiting periods and informed consent for abortions (HB 1211), nor did they hesitate to pass a bill which would urge state and local governments to post “In God We Trust” on the walls of public buildings (HJ 493), claiming it to be a “national motto.” In other words, in cases in which social or religious agendas are involved, privacy is not an issue.

Yet perhaps the most pernicious assault on privacy occurs not at stoplights, not at the doctor’s office and not on the walls of public buildings. Rather it occurs in the bedroom, and it does so in the form of a statute known as Crimes Against Nature (18.2-361, sect. A). This statute, which is debated every year in the legislature, is a throwback to more Puritanical times, and essentially declares that anyone who engages in anything but procreative sex is, in Virginia at least, a felon. While most people assume that this statute outlaws homosexuality in Virginia, the fact is that it applies to everyone – gay or straight. Any consenting adult who wishes to show affection for another consenting adult in the privacy of his or her bedroom in any but a procreative way is a felon and can be incarcerated for up to 5 years or fined $2500 for the offense.

This year, as he has in the past, Del. Brian Moran (D-46^th) introduced a bill which, among other things, would effectively kill this unwarranted intrusion into our bedrooms and legalize non-procreative sex between consenting adults over 18. And, as usual, the bill was effectively tabled in committee, with a majority of Republicans opposing it and a majority of Democrats favoring it. In canvassing our local delegates, I found that Del. Melanie Rapp (R-96^th), who was otherwise most forthcoming in her answers to my other questions concerning privacy statutes, chose to sidestep this issue. She indicated that Moran’s bill involves only sex in public, which is not quite the case, since in its second section, it clearly deals with adult consensual sex in private . She did say, however, that she would not favor reducing the penalty for such consensual sex from a felony to a misdemeanor (as was suggested in HB 2309, which also failed to get out of committee). Del. William Barlow (D-64^th), whose primary interest this session was in the telemarketing bill, also chose not to comment on the Moran initiative, indicating that he hadn’t had the opportunity to educate himself on the background of the bill. Patrick Pettitt, Rapp’s Democratic challenger, whom I also asked to comment, chose not to respond at all to my questions.

In the end, then, one is left with the impression that our local delegates seem to be somewhat uninformed about this intrusion of the state into the most private activity of our lives. And this should disturb us all. While the cameras will be turned off at stoplights, they could, presumably, be legally turned on in our bedrooms to enforce this unenforceable law. It is, in fact, the voyeurism of Big Brother at its worst. We are indeed fortunate that the Supreme Court has chosen to outlaw heat sensing equipment that would allow law enforcement officers to violate the privacy of our homes and detect our every move. Otherwise many Virginians could be serving time as felons in one of our underpopulated prisons.