Ron Paul said recently that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made segregation illegal, destroyed privacy. His argument was that the government shouldn’t get in the way of free association, for better or worse. Interesting, given the We The People Act, which Paul authored and sponsored in 2004 and 2009. This bill, inspired by his opposition to the Supreme Court ruling against Texas’ ban on sodomy, would have banned all federal courts, including the Supreme Court, from hearing cases regarding state laws on abortion, marriage equality, sexual practices, and establishment of religion. This bill would eliminate all Supreme Court precedent regarding privacy. It would allow states to ban abortion, continue to make unconstitutional laws against recognizing gay marriages, and establish state religions. Under this law, states would be able to force children to pray in schools, prevent non-Christians from being hired, etc. And states would be allowed to, as Texas was until 2004, peek in your windows and see who you’re having sex with, in what position, and arrest you if they don’t like what they see.

So in Ron Paul’s mind, whether or not you serve black people in your restaurant is your private business, but whether or not you can practice your religion or have “free association” in the most private of places—your bedroom—is up to the government. You can swear up and down that Ron Paul isn’t racist, but when he thinks it’s unacceptable to ban segregation but okay to ban sex that isn’t between a Christian cisgendered man and a Christian cisgendered woman in the missionary position for the purpose of procreation if that’s what a state wants to do, it’s pretty fucking telling.