Kline - Puritan, Perverted Voyeur, or Both?

It is hard to discuss Phill Kline's latest attack on women without having Margaret Atwood's novel, The Handmaid's Tale, come to mind. In that book, lower-class women are kept for breeding purposes in a theocracy that sounds suspiciously like what the right wing is seeking. If Phill Kline has read it, he probably thought it was a fantasy. Another literary echo is The Scarlet Letter.

For those who haven't seen the stories in the news, the Attorney General of Kansas is seeking complete health files of 90 women, "including sexual history, birth-control practices, medical history, notes of physical exams and psychological profiles." He does not claim to be seeking this information to investigate a particular crime - it is a fishing expedition so he can have agents visit these women and ask follow-up questions, armed with the most sensitive and private information imaginable.

Proof of Kline's bad faith is found in the fact that the clinics even offered to cooperate with him, but he refused their offer because it did not satisfy his sick lust for private information. "The clinics offered to present records with identifying information redacted. They argued that if Kline found evidence of a crime in a report, he could seek more information about that woman without exposing the identities of the others." The judge is clearly a kindred soul of Kline's - he has ignored the motion.

A further disturbing twist is that until the clinics asked the Kansas Supreme Court to intervene, this case was subject to a "gag order" - keeping it out of the eye of the public. It was initiated in the fall - and undoubtedly gagged because Kline knew that the right-wing kooks in Kansas, and perhaps the nation, would lose votes in the November elections if the American public saw just how insane, repressive and puritanical they are.

This is not Kline's first attempt to gain access to the sexual history of those who would not prefer to share it with him. A couple years ago, he had the great idea of having all health providers tell him about young girls who were sexually active. He lost that effort, so now he has to come up with another means of intruding into the lives of sexually active women.

I've never met Phill Kline, so I can only speculate into his motives. Clearly, there are enough legal issues in Kansas that he doesn't need to delve into these murky waters just to keep himself busy. In fact, he should probably be preparing his own defense for violating the Kansas Open Meetings law.

The man has demonstrated a pattern of trying to gain access to information about women's sexuality. Most people satisfy that kind of desire by getting drunk with a group of friends and swapping stories about their "first time" and so on. Apparently, nobody will get drunk with Phill Kline. Maybe, just maybe, if sexually active young women would call his number - (785) 296-2215 - and regale him with a bawdy tale or two, he could, umm, satisfy himself without having to go to court.