Defining Deviancy Down Has Consequences

In 1993, then Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., published a paper in which he coined the phrase "defining deviancy down."

He was ringing an alarm about what he saw as a dangerous social unraveling as result of our redefining deviant behavior as normal, rather than doubling down on traditional standards of behavior.

It's through this lens that we should view the Obama administration mandate that employers provide free contraception and sterilization and its refusal to grant an exemption to morally opposed religious institutions.

Our audacious president, as part of his ongoing enterprise to transform America, has gone beyond defining deviancy down. Abortion, sterilization, and sexual promiscuity have not just been redefined as normal. They are considered "reproductive rights" for which we all should foot the bill.

Consider Rush Limbaugh's much ballyhooed verbal assault on a Georgetown law student for testifying before Congress in favor of forcing her Jesuit university to provide free contraception for students.

In a Gallup poll done in 1969, 68 percent said pre-marital sex is wrong and 21 percent said it is not wrong. Few young women in 1969 would have felt comfortable to declare publicly that they slept around and it's doubtful that any politician or media personality would have condoned her behavior.

More