Q: What’s behind two umbrellas facing the sea?
A: Lovers.
It is simple and yet profound. Understand its essence and you will understand the essence of love.
I first heard this riddle while studying Buddhism on the island nation of Sri Lanka. I found myself sympathizing with the two lovers from the riddle. It was impossible to find privacy on the island. Homes were built open, and if anything covered a window it was a thin transparent cloth.
One day my host mother walked up to me and said, “I love the way you write.”
“The way I write?” I asked.
“Yes, in your diary. I read it when you aren’t here.”
She said it so nonchalantly; then and there I realized that privacy was not considered a right in Sri Lanka.
Religious fanatics have been trying to dismantle privacy rights for years in this country, with the help of the Republican party. They would like to see our right to privacy disappear because they claim it does not exist within the Constitution.
Actually, they’re right. The phrase “right to privacy” does not appear in the Constitution; in fact, the word “privacy” is nowhere to be found. Our modern right to privacy was created in the 1965 case Griswold v. Connecticut, which established the right for married couples to use contraception.
I have argued in the past that we should have the right to privacy, whether it is in the Constitution or not. But I just couldn’t believe that our Founding Fathers never considered privacy a basic right. It was a mystery. Then I read something that made sense of it all.
In 1776 when somebody said they needed privacy, they meant they had to use the bathroom–the privy. The chamber pots themselves were called privates. That’s why the word is absent from the Constitution. My guess is that our founding fathers considered the right to take a shit one of those “inalienable rights” that were “self-evident,” like the right to eat and drink, which are also missing from the pages of the Constitution.
Privacy is not something that can be granted by the state, nor should it be taken away by that state. Privacy is as natural as the sea. It is a fundamental human right, granted by the creator. So why are these right-wing religious fanatics so intent on dismantling privacy rights?
The riddle of the two umbrellas provides the answer.
It shows that privacy and love go hand-in-hand. The religious right’s war against privacy is part and parcel of their puritanical war against love. They rile against privacy rights because they desire to create an America that offers no safe haven from their oppressive sexual mores.
It seems clear to me that they care more about the institution of marriage than they do about humans in love. They want to know what you are doing behind those two umbrellas so that they can judge it and stop it.
For the majority of Americans, including secular Republicans and libertarians, this is a horrific vision of the future. We cannot understand freedom and liberty without privacy. We say that what we do behind two umbrellas is only for the sea and us to know.
During Valentine’s Day, while you’re enjoying a romantic evening with your lover, imagine the terrible world they are trying to create. Imagine a world without umbrellas.