There’s this case in a Texas town where swingers’ parties are going on every Friday night. The people of the town don’t want that kind of thing happening around their children, so there’s been some controversy, news coverage, and a pending court case. It was brought to my attention by Bill O’Reilly, that great defender of the good traditional folks. After all, what’s the problem with asking these people to keep their disgusting shenanigans private?
The problem is that they are keeping it private. Guess where these swingers’ parties are happening? In a private residence. That’s right, there is an uproar over how these people are choosing to have sex in the privacy of their own home. The good residents of the town are trying to shut them down. Impossible in America, you say?
Well, these residents are trying to make it into a zoning issue by complaining that too many cars are being parked on the street when these parties are going on. There’s also a question of whether business is being conducted in this private residence (the homeowners take donations from those who want to participate in the sex parties).
If there’s a business going on there, then fine. That’s a legitimate gripe; it’s against the law. It’s nothing more than a loophole used by moralizers, but they’d still be in the right.
But everyone knows what this is about. Bill O’Reilly made it clear: He considers it a quality of life issue, as do the neighbors. The people of the neighborhood shouldn’t have to subject their kids to what’s happening there. I could hardly believe I was listening to this fascist nonsense when I heard it. Where exactly are they allowed to have sex, if not in their own home? Would O’Reilly support the city forcing them to move? Should they be limited to having only heterosexual sex between one man and one woman? Would O’Reilly vote for a bylaw that allowed a maximum of two people over at the house at one time?
O’Reilly had Megyn Kelly, a lawyer, on his show to discuss this matter. She seemed to be in favor of the swingers’ right to have any sort of sex life they wanted in the privacy of their own home (though I think she was holding her nose a bit as she said this). O’Reilly demagogued by asking Ms. Kelly how she would explain to her kids, if she lived in that neighborhood, the presence of all those cars and people at the house every Friday night.
Hooray for America and rational discourse, she said, “I’d tell them just that they were having a party, and that would be enough.” A perfectly acceptable response to any such situation, though of course O’Reilly wasn’t having that.
Me, I’d be a little more draconian about it. I’d tell my kids to mind their own business. I’d ask them why they cared what other people were doing. Why does it matter what’s going on over there, if it’s not even affecting you? I might even see it as an opportunity to instill in my children one of the most basic precepts of morality: Everyone has a right to live their life the way they choose, as long as it doesn’t impinge upon another’s right to do so.
You see what I did with this article? I didn’t give one single hint as to how I feel personally about swingers. For all the reader knows, I could equally be a conservative prude or a perverted freak. Such neutrality is a good idea because my personal opinion doesn’t matter. The issue is about whether they have a right to do it, not whether I think it’s moral or immoral.
O’Reilly and many others like him can never address an issue like this without their bias being apparent, because they allow their personal ideology to interfere in their judgement of others. That’s all fine and dandy, but not if you think highly of the United States Constitution.
