Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess Salisbury Quotes
I object to Parliament trying to regulate private morality in matters which only affects the person who commits the offence.
This quotation is very important because it illustrates a big difference between English Conservatives and American conservative (Republicans). In America, the Conservatives were committed to having the government regulate and control the private morality of citizens—particularly in matters of sex. English conservatives, like the Prime Minister, saw this as an improper intrusion of big government.
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 1830-1903, 3rd Marquess Salisbury, British Prime Minister (Liberal), British Prime Minister (Conservative), Letter to Sir Henry Peek, 1888
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This was a criticism of most Republicans who generally claimed that they were against big government and government interference. Except however, they tended to support strong government interference about abortion, contraception, and other issues involving women’s control over their bodies. The Republicans mostly favored government prohibiting personal drug taking, couples right to divorce, right to marry, homosexual behavior, the right to die and other personal issues. However, Frank, who espoused government non-interference in these areas, was one of the strongest advocates in Congress for government interference with business and commercial activities.
Both the United States and Canada had laws regulating the sexual behavior of citizens in the privacy of their own homes. It was not just homosexuality that the state attempted to control. Even the specific positions and methods of heterosexual intercourse were controlled by some states. Oral sex, certain positions of intercourse and other “details” could put a person in jail. Canada, a parliamentary nation, changed this by legislation. In the United States, it was the Supreme Court decisions protecting privacy that invalidated these old sexual role restrictions and prescriptions. For example, just 4 years before this quotation was made, 1963, the state of Connecticut was ordered (Griswald v. Connecticut) to release a pharmacist for the “crime” of filling a doctor’s prescription for condoms for a married couple where the wife would likely die if she became pregnant and carried the baby to term.
The country had just gotten rid of Prohibition. However, there was substantial censorship of literature on the part of the Post Office, then a government agency. Abortion was then illegal in every state, and in many states it was a criminal offence to sell or distribute condoms. Homosexuality was a crime in most states and it disqualified a person from Federal employment as did a woman who had borne a child out of wedlock. Films were censored, and in some states, the only legal position for a married couple to have intercourse was the so called “missionary position”. All others were often a crime. Store owners could not open on Sunday, and Christian prayers were compulsory in many areas of society.
While this was a strong central political principle for Reagan, a substantial part of his political party strongly advocated the against the government interjecting itself into people’s lives.
