Hugh Hefner accuses GOP of waging war on sex

It's not OK . It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to what -- how things are supposed to be.

O'DONNELL: One of the field generals of the American sexual revolution of the 1960s has had enough of the Republican party 's war on sex. In an editorial entitled "the War Against Sex " in the new issue of "Playboy," Hugh Hefner says, "while wooing the conservative vote, these candidates revealed the ways a GOP -led government would decide with whom we can have sex and for what reasons, single or married, straight or gay." Hefner teaches his younger readers that their sexual privacy was a recently earned right. He writes, "in 1961 , police arrested Estelle Griswold , executive director of Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut and Dr. C. Lee Buxton , a Yale professor, who served as its medical director. Buxton and Griswold were charged with violating a state law that banned sharing information about contraceptives, including with married couples . "The U.S. Supreme Court voted seven to two to overturn the convictions. The justices clearly saw the affront. Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for the telltale signs of the use of contraceptives? "The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship. We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights ." Joining me now is Ana Marie Cox , a correspondent for " The Guardian ." Ana Marie , this notion that we have a war on sex, I think, has been finally, perfectly articulated by Hugh Hefner , who else, who has shown very clearly that the Republicans are really saying things that we really haven't heard advanced seriously since the 1960s , when it became the losing argument as the sexual revolution overtook the crazy laws that we had in this country, banning even the discussion of contraception publicly.

ANA MARIE COX, "THE GUARDIAN": That's right . And I think he's correct in saying that this is probably the last gasp of some desperate people, really trying to hold on to that retrograde notion about sex. I also really want to add that, you know, it's titillating to talk about this as the war against sex, and to talk about the bedroom, and to talk about what kind of sexual rights allowed, but this is really about civil rights and human rights and about gender equality. When we talk about contraception, yes that has to do with sex, but that has to do with women's economic power in the workplace as well. This is not something which we can just be titillated by, which is what I think Rick Santorum might want. This is something that has to do with people's everyday lives. It has to do with why I can sit here and talk to you right now.

O'DONNELL: Yes. And why would Rick Santorum want with some kind of titillating discussion about this?

COX: Well, I think it's the giggles and the titillation that sort of get us away from talking about this as an economic issue and as a human rights issue. I mean, we really don't care as Americans about what people do in the bedroom. And I think that's what Hugh Hefner is really saying, right? Except, of course, in Hugh Hefner 's magazine, people care about what people are doing in the bedroom. But for the most part Americans don't care. And we've turned our eyes away from it and we've decided we're going to let gay couples do what they want to do. We're going to let straight couples do what they want to do. And I think that when you bring it back up in this way, this nudge, nudge kind of way, it gets people talking about it and brings the focus away from the rights that have been won because of things like contraception.

O'DONNELL: But this is the way Rick Santorum talked about it. A second place finishing Republican almost-nominee was publicly saying that contraception is a bad thing. You know, even Ron Paul was saying that there's an immorality in the use of contraception. People think he's a libertarian. He isn't on sex. I mean, they really went into some very strange zones in this campaign.

COX: They did. They went into strange zones. Again, they brought the focus on to the bedroom, like Rick Santorum talked about birth control leading to unnatural acts or things that you shouldn't do. Birth control is a health issue. It's an issue about what women can do with their bodies and what women can -- how women can control their bodies and how that's no one else's business. I mean, to talk about it to talk about it in the way that Rick Santorum talked about it I think distracts us from. like I said, what I think the real issue is, which is my right to be here right now talking to you.

O'DONNELL: Ana Marie Cox , identifying the real issue, thank you very much for your time tonight. END