Americans have always wanted it both ways. From the first tentative settlements in the New World, a tension has existed between the pursuit of individual liberty and the quest for Puritan righteousness, between Benjamin Franklin's open road of individualism and Jonathan Edwards' Great Awakening of moral fervor. The temper of the times shifts from one pole to the other, and along with it the role of the state. Government intrudes; government retreats; the state meddles with morality, then washes its hands and withdraws. The Gilded Age gave way to the muscular governmental incursions of the Age of Reform. The Roaring Twenties gave rise to the straitlaced Hays Office of the '30s. The buttoned-up '50s ushered in the unbuttoned '60s. And, most recently, a reaction to the sexual revolution spurred a spirited crusade to reassert family values that helped sweep Ronald Reagan into the presidency.
Each swing brings to the fore a series of questions. What is the role of the state in enforcing the morality of its citizenry? How far should government go in regulating private conduct? Is morality a question of individual rights? Or should the state play an active role in nurturing values deemed worthy by the community?
These questions were at the heart of the debate last week surrounding the release of the final report of Attorney General Edwin Meese's Commission on Pornography and a series of restrictive Supreme Court decisions that, among other things, allowed states to outlaw homosexual sodomy. Though significant, neither the report's findings nor the court's rulings were, on their own, momentous. Taken together, however, they seemed emblematic of a new moral militancy evident in communities around the country and of a willingness of government officials, from federal to local levels, to help enforce traditional values. In addition to the pornography report and the sodomy ruling, consider:
-- More than 10,000 stores across the country, including such mammoth chains as 7-Eleven and Rite Aid, have removed Playboy and Penthouse from their shelves, many of them acting after receiving a letter from the Meese commission suggesting that they might be cited for distributing pornography.
^ -- The Supreme Court last week upheld a New York State public-health nuisance law that would permit officials in Buffalo to close an adult bookstore for one year because of solicitation for prostitution on the premises.
-- In another decision last week, the court gave a narrow interpretation to the First Amendment in a case involving the suspension of a student who gave a speech colored by sexual innuendo.
-- The court ruled two weeks ago, in a case involving advertising by gambling casinos in Puerto Rico, that even truthful ads for lawful goods and services could be restricted by the state to protect the "health, safety and welfare" of its citizens.
-- The Justice Department issued a ruling that would allow businesses to discriminate against workers with AIDS if there was a fear that the health of other employees was jeopardized.