Right to Privacy

                The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns the right to privacy. Courts recognize that the right to privacy is protected by the Constitution, and society has long protected the right to privacy. Why then has this right been set aside to appease the LGBT movement? Why do women and children have to fear men coming into their restrooms or locker rooms or men worry about women coming into theirs?

                Matt Sharp, legal counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, “represents students and parents in two federal lawsuits against the Obama administration for exceeding its authority in pushing school districts to open bathrooms to the opposite sex.” His article titled “Our Constitutional Right to Privacy Is Missing from Bathroom Debate” as published by “The Daily Signal.” 

                In his article, Sharp suggests that common sense has been eliminated from the discussion about bathrooms. “What else can explain the decision by dozens of school districts across the country, retailing giant Target, and even the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice to voluntarily adopt and promote policies that strip away privacy for everyone, allowing men into women’s restrooms and locker rooms, and vice versa? …

                “When discussing freedom of speech, one of our most precious rights, the Supreme Court has often emphasized that the right is most important for those whose speech is most vulnerable to censorship.

                “The majority’s views aren’t the ones that need protection. The minority’s views, the ones that may subject the speaker to abuse, are the ones that the First Amendment was designed to protect.

                “The same is true of the right to privacy. So who are the vulnerable ones in our society most in need of privacy?”

                Sharp explains that the most vulnerable people are those who have suffered sexual abuse or assault and those who are vulnerable for other reasons. Privacy is “especially important [to them] in order to heal and to feel safe. By protecting privacy for everyone, we protect privacy for the most vulnerable among us….”