Doctors to quiz patients on sexual orientation under NHS plans

The presumption of innocence is one of the signal features of a free society.  Even more fundamental, however, is a person’s right to privacy.  The latter depends on the state’s recognition of spheres of sovereignty besides its own – like the family, or the professional guilds of law, health, and education – that may legitimately operate outside government interference.

These invariably collapse when the true source of all sovereignty, that of God himself, is denied by the state.

Without a recognition of the state’s own limited sovereignty under God, and its accountability to him, the state invariably intrudes into the less powerful, but no less legitimate, spheres.

That is because, unlike in a dictatorship, the recognition of authorities besides the state provides a hedge between the governing powers and the private lives of their citizens.

The sanctity of this privacy has been maintained throughout Western society until very recently.  Even in the case that the state’s laws had been broken, an officer of the state was restrained by the need for a specific application to a judge for a warrant to intrude upon that sacred realm of the home, the birthplace of human identity.

A loss of a sense of this sanctity is now evident in administrative legislation throughout the Western world.  The long-acknowledged sanctities that safeguard a genuinely human existence are being assaulted,

And it is happening in the name of ‘human rights’.

Sexual orientation, gender identity, and SOGI legislation

There have been significant discussions about whether novel concepts such as ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ belong in the same category as the human rights they are often placed alongside.  Unlike sex, age, colour, or religion, these new concepts are dependent (to what degree is a matter of debate) on the free choices of the individual.  They are not inherited biologically, and have no historical roots.

And as such, they are no more a part of human nature (and thus human rights) than a right can be claimed to exist for hugs or chocolate.

Yet is also becoming clear that SOGI legislation is different in another, and at least as alarming way.  In order to insure equality through its SOGI legislation, the state is using its involvement in the professional spheres – the law, the field of education, and the medical field – to enforce an outcome of equality upon people.  There is no presumption of innocence, and thus an ever-shrinking sense of a person’s right to privacy.  And the government is using its financial support of these serving professions to rob them of their integrity.

They are mere instruments of the state.

The reason that the ‘quizzes’ on matters like sexual orientation seem necessary is precisely for the reason stated above.  It is not at all obvious what a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity is through a biological description.  It cannot be discerned at birth.  It can change.  It is a profession of sorts, somewhat akin to a religious confession.

And for that reason, it is also clear that governments are increasingly taking on religious functions in their administration that regularly intrude upon areas of privacy historically enjoyed within a free society.

The right of a patient to enjoy confidentiality with his or her doctor and not confront a state bureaucrat with an ulterior motive is one of these.

This ‘progress’ is highly regressive, and totalitarian.

Read the article in the U.K.’s Independent