Cosby cannot have moral opinions and privacy

I have defended Bill Cosby here several times, because I believe people are innocent until proven guilty, and because the decades only charges seemed implausible and gold-digging.

But now documents show that he admitted in 2005 to getting quaaludes for sexual activity.

These admissions damaging, but not conclusive. From what I see, he admitted buying the quaaludes decades ago, and to intending to give them to women he was going to seduce. But it is unclear whether they took the pills, and whether they were voluntarily and consensually taking them. Apparently a lot of people used to take these pills to enhance a sexual experience.

It is not a date-rape drug, as far as I know.

This story is being reported as proof of Cosby's built. I don't see it that way, but we will see. If so, he will lose millions of dollars in lawsuits. If you do not hear about big payoffs soon, then his accusers do not have the evidence.

Anyway, what disturbs me about this story is something else. A judge released what had been a sealed 2005 deposition, and here was his reasoning:

This case, however, is not about Defendant’s status as a public person by virtue of the exercise of his trade as a televised or comedic personality. Rather, Defendant has donned the mantle of public moralist and mounted the proverbial electronic or print soap box to volunteer his views on, among other things, childrearing, family life, education, and crime. To the extent that Defendant has freely entered the public square and “thrust himself into the vortex of th[ese] public issue[s],” he has voluntarily narrowed the zone of privacy that he is entitled to claim.

Wow, I did not know that a man loses his privacy rights by expression his opinions on "childrearing, family life, education, and crime." I have given opinions on some of those things on this blog. Does that mean that I have no privacy? That some judge will soon be unsealing my court files?

In my case, the most embarrassing things are already on the public file, and even searchable on the web.

Here is the Cosby moral opinion, referred to by the judge:

I’m talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was two? (clapping) Where were you when he was twelve? (clapping) Where were you when he was eighteen, and how come you don’t know he had a pistol? (clapping) And where is his father, and why don’t you know where he is? And why doesn’t the father show up to talk to this boy?

The church is only open on Sunday. And you can’t keep asking Jesus to ask doing things for you (clapping). ...

50 percent drop out rate, I’m telling you, and people in jail, and women having children by five, six different men. Under what excuse, I want somebody to love me, and as soon as you have it, you forget to parent. Grandmother, mother, and great grandmother in the same room, raising children, and the child knows nothing about love or respect of any one of the three of them (clapping). All this child knows is “gimme, gimme, gimme.”

Apparently there is a widespread belief that if you even promote Christian morals, and if you ever had any un-Christian behavior in the past, then you must be punished by any means possible.

Dennis Hastert might fill that pattern. He was a Republican Speaker of the House, and now he is indicted for lying about why he was withdrawing cash from the bank. It is strange that anyone would even be keeping track of his bank transactions. It appears to be some sort of Democrat payback.

All this seems to intimidate politicians and others into never expressing a moral opinion. If you do, the anti-moralist will do everything to destroy you.