Kurtz and Government Control of Society

Stanley Kurtz, in an article on National Review Online, writes about the dangers presented by the new HBO series "Big Love", which portrays the life and struggles a polygamist family (link here). To Kurtz -- and no doubt also to other social conservative types -- such programs constitute a danger to society in that they threaten to undermine traditional structures that have long defined family and relationships.

I have no problem with Kurtz taking issue with the program or its moral message, however in his complaints he betrays a very totalitarian view of how society should be constituted. First off, Kurtz takes issue with how the show portrays polygamists as real people with real problems and personalities, as no doubt he knows that this will work against the attempts of him and his ilk to slander all those in "unconventional" relationships -- from homosexuals to polygamists -- as disgusting hedonistic monsters or backwards perverts.

Kurtz is also upset by talk of decriminalizing polygamy, and repeatedly expresses disgust at the idea that people might be able to live their lives as they see fit, loving whoever they choose. Implicit in all this is that someone should determine which kinds of relationships are acceptable, and that anyone straying from the norm should be punished as criminals. Kurtz betrays a deep-seated contempt for human freedom, and obviously believes that government should take an active role in imposing certain lifestyles on the American populace. He of course shares this totalitarian tendency with a large swath of the conservative movement, which is all the more worrisome when one considers the potential for great evil if the so-called "moral majority" can mobilize sufficiently to enact more stringent, anti-freedom, puritanical laws.