Pierre Trudeau Quotes
The state has no place in the nation's bedrooms.
Trudeau, Pierre Elliott. Remarks to reporters on the Omnibus Bill. CBC News, CBC Television, 21 Dec. 1967.
Israel, like the UK, does not have a constitution or bill of rights per se, and laws passed by the Knesset serve the role of enumerating rights.
Both the United States and Canada had laws regulating the sexual behavior of citizens in the privacy of their own homes. It was not just homosexuality that the state attempted to control. Even the specific positions and methods of heterosexual intercourse were controlled by some states. Oral sex, certain positions of intercourse and other “details” could put a person in jail. Canada, a parliamentary nation, changed this by legislation. In the United States, it was the Supreme Court decisions protecting privacy that invalidated these old sexual role restrictions and prescriptions. For example, just 4 years before this quotation was made, 1963, the state of Connecticut was ordered (Griswald v. Connecticut) to release a pharmacist for the “crime” of filling a doctor’s prescription for condoms for a married couple where the wife would likely die if she became pregnant and carried the baby to term.
This was a criticism of most Republicans who generally claimed that they were against big government and government interference. Except however, they tended to support strong government interference about abortion, contraception, and other issues involving women’s control over their bodies. The Republicans mostly favored government prohibiting personal drug taking, couples right to divorce, right to marry, homosexual behavior, the right to die and other personal issues. However, Frank, who espoused government non-interference in these areas, was one of the strongest advocates in Congress for government interference with business and commercial activities.
Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau PC CC CH QC FRSC, also referred to by the initials PET, was a Canadian politician who was the 15th prime minister of Canada and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 1968 to 1984, with a brief period instead as Leader of the Opposition between 1979 and 1980. His tenure of 15 years and 164 days makes him Canada's third longest-serving Prime Minister, behind William Lyon Mackenzie King and John A. Macdonald.
