Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona has apparently signed a bill into law that allows employers to interrogate their female employees about their sex lives.
Details, as far as I’m concerned, are not as important as one overriding principle:
When I work for someone, they pay me for the work I do and THAT IS ALL. This should not be controversial in the least. If health insurance is part of my compensation for the work I do while I am engaged in work for said employer, it is none of that employer’s business what I do with it. The employer does not own any other part of my life or my time.
As an employer (and I have been in a manager position in the past, responsible for hiring and firing) I don’t care if someone goes to a Black Mass on weekends and participates in Crisco-soaked orgies, as long as when they show up on Monday to do the job I hired them to do they look presentable and do their job competently. It would be none of my business.
Just as it would be none of my business if they attended some little whacked out fringe church that preached the End Times and that Obama is the antichrist and on their own time handed out petitions to shut down Planned Parenthood. That is none of my business.
So if on Friday an employee went home, dressed in leather, and went to an S & M club, whipped people black-and-blue while masturbating with an oversized dildo, as long as she (or he) came in Monday ready to do the job for which they have been hired, IT IS NONE OF MY FUCKING BUSINESS WHAT THEY DID ON THE WEEKEND!
An employer does not own any part of his or her employees’ life and they are only leasing the 40 or so hours a week during which they are working.
WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND? WHY DOES GOVERNOR BREWER OR ANYBODY ELSE THINK THIS IS ACCEPTABLE POLICY? THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, BECAUSE THIS IS A BUSINESS TRANSACTION BETWEEN EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYEE, NOTHING MORE, AND THE PRIVATE LIFE OF BOTH THE EMPLOYER AND THE EMPLOYEE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT UNLESS IS DIRECTLY IMPACTS THE WORK BEING DONE!
Sorry for the shouting.
But the next time some pinhead rightwing do-gooder disingenuously questions you as to “what war on women? I don’t know what you’re talking about” point to this. Among others. This is directed at women, since men, as far as I know, represent no significant part of health insurance expenditure for contraception.
And ask that man how he might feel if his boss asks him, “So, Dick, I see you only have two kids. You’ve been married 12 years, though. Aren’t you fucking your wife? I only ask because we’re a family values organization…”
