Katha Pollitt: Practice What you Preach

[from the May 16, 2005 issue]

Pharmacists think they have the right to deny women birth control and the morning-after pill. Senator Frist thinks God wants more ultraconservative judges on the federal bench and if you disagree, well, you know where you're going. Forget common ground, it's time to divide up the country. The red-state blue-state map is too crude--too many blue pegs in red holes and vice versa. In the great tradition of American individualism and modern in-depth polling procedures, let's make everyone respond, in writing, to a detailed questionnaire on hot-button "values issues" and then be legally compelled to live by the answers they give. It's a glorious blend of academic right and left--rational choice theory (people make decisions in their own best interests) meets postmodernism (there is no one truth).