William Barr, Trump's Attorney General Pick, Wanted Government to 'Restrain Sexual Immorality'

[Demovictory9]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/william-barr-trumps-attorney-general-pick-wanted-government-to-restrain-sexual-immorality

https://img.thedailybeast.com/image/upload/c_crop,d_placeholder_euli9k,h_1440,w_2560,x_0,y_0/dpr_2.0/c_limit,w_740/fl_lossy,q_auto/v1544405988/181207-michaelson-barr-tease_j929rx

Barr went on to blame everything from crime to sexually transmitted diseases on a government-led attack on “traditional values.” He explicitly called for the government to subsidize Catholic religious education and to promote laws which “restrain sexual immorality,” a reference to homosexuality and non-marital sex.

These views are no longer those of a private citizen. As attorney general, Barr would have more influence than anyone else in the country in how laws dealing with religion, LGBT rights, civil rights, and women’s rights are enforced or not.

Barr served as attorney general from 1991 to 1993. After he left government, he laid out his views in an essay, “Legal Issues in a New Political Order” published in the St. John’s University Law School journal The Catholic Lawyer.

“The American government,” he wrote, “was predicated precisely on [the] Judeo-Christian system” that “flows from God's eternal law.” But since the 1960s, Barr wrote, “the state no longer sees itself as a moral institution, but a secular one.”

Specifically, Barr continued, “through legislative action, litigation, or judicial interpretation, secularists continually seek to eliminate laws that reflect' traditional moral norms. Decades ago, we saw the barriers to divorce eliminated. Twenty years ago, we saw the laws against abortion swept away. Today, we are seeing the constant chipping away at laws designed to restrain sexual immorality, obscenity, or euthanasia.”

In fact, those “barriers to divorce” often forced women to remain in abusive or miserable marriages, and treated men as the “head and master” of the household with near absolute power, especially over shared property. And the “laws designed to restrain sexual immorality” criminalized gay sex, condemning millions of lesbian and gay people to lives of misery, isolation, and vulnerability to criminal prosecution and violence.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

1. How long until his scandal is uncovered?

All of these sanctimonious crusaders have their own personal, secret, hypocritical scandals. It's only a matter of time before his is revealed.

[dewsgirl]

10. You beat me to it.

[DFW]

2. And to think that 60 years ago, they worried about JFK being Catholic

These days, the Supreme Court is already practically a Papal Enclave, and more and more people are getting into positions of national responsibility that sound more comfortable with the Spanish Inquisition than with with the U.S. Constitution.

[jmowreader]

3. And now...the $64,000 Question

How, exactly, can a man like William Barr (neither you nor I agree with Barr's moral stance, but he's serious about it) work for Donald Trump? Trump is everything Barr hates in one evil package.

[Jarqui]

4. Because in eyes of the GOP, he is just the Pussy-Grabber-In-Chief

and people knew that when the Russians effectively stole their vote.

[Freelancer]

5. Excellent point! -nt

[JI7]

6. because these things are usually about controlling women and Trump is a racist right wing xtian

hetero white male and they are never the problem.

[OnDoutside]

14. Easy answer.....he's a typical Repug hypocrite.

[Oneironaut]

16. "Trump is a changed man. He found God."

"Also, his policies will supersede any sins committed in the past."

[DeminPennswoods]

8. He needs to go through confirmation again

nt

[Achilleaze]

11. So he's going to crack down on republican sex predators?

[CRK7376]

19. Starting with Trump's

infidelity maybe? He is such a morally superior orange blob...

[treestar]

12. As AG he can only enforce the laws that are

He doesn't get to make up new ones.

[LiberalFighter]

21. But he has discretion on which laws to enforce.

Not right. But he will.

[no_hypocrisy]

13. None of his views will be enacted and enforced.

First, it's laughable to think that Trump will issue Executive Orders for these restrictions.

Next, which party controls the House in January, 2019?

[mnmoderatedem]

15. and yet he's TRUMP'S choice?

[hatrack]

20. He's a bone tossed to the Bible Thumpers . . . .

Hit him with a quick gloss-coat of nostalgic "civility" by way of GHWB's recent funerary hagiography and he pops out of the nominee slot like a Butterfinger from a vending machine.

[Achilleaze]

17. So he's going to crack down on republican sexual predators?

Decent people can get behind that...

[tanyev]

18. Then he can start at the very top with Individual 1.

[harumph]

22. There are two strains of Catholicism

The Catholicism of Dorothy Day and contemporary social justice Catholics, who often
call themselves "lapsed" - but remain committed to the Sermon on the Mount Jesus

...and the Crazy bunch who fetishize ritual and rules over substance.

Barr belongs to the latter.