Most of the people drawn to marriage promotion and family values politics just want to improve marriage and family values. Some people who make a public name for themselves as family values politicians, though, were drawn to the movement to fight their own temptations. They were concerned about sexual morality in the first place because they knew the desires they were suppressing in themselves.
The Republican Party hitched its wagon to the "family values" star a generation ago. When sexual orientation became a major political issue, that, too, became part of the sexual purity package that Republicans used to differentiate themselves from Democrats. Opposing homosexuality and excoriating adultery became almost obligatory for new Republican politicians. Some of the people drawn to the movement at that time had demons they were fighting in themselves. Some of them got elected.
And now the chickens are coming home to roost. There are so many family values Republicans in office with affairs and, more rarely, homosexual encounters in their past that there is a new family values sex scandal almost every week. This week's affair, by State Sen. Paul Stanley over an affair with an intern, follows sex scandals of Mark Sanford and John Ensign and Larry Craig and Mark Foley .... And, no doubt, more to come.
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4 comments:
Dem sex scandals are more accepted by the media. With all the cable channels there are more eyes are watching.The 60's free love values are coming home to roost. We are equally fallible. People believe in things they fail to live up to all the time. I do, don't you. I doesn't make the beliefs wrong. Even the Apostle Paul did as he wanted not to do.
I am a Calvinist - I know we are all sinners, myself included. And of course there are Democratic sex scandals, which I also condemn. But there is less Democratic posturing about sexual purity at the moment, and quite a bit more Republican posturing on this issue.
There is no way to know if there is actually more adultery or homosexual practice among Republican politicians than among Democratic politicians. I think it is quite possible that there is, though, because the Republican Party has been especially recruiting politicians for whom sexual purity is a high psychological priority. This should increase the number of people who promote sexual purity because it is unusually hard for them to do it themselves. They are more likely to fail than other people.
Are Democrats susceptible to promoting values which they find hard to keep? Or does this theory apply only to Republicans? Wouldn't a true centrist treat both parties in a similar manner? In which areas are Democrats hypocritical?
Sure - see my post about Ensign:
http://gruntledcenter.blogspot.com/2009/06/family-values-hypocrites-should-resign.html
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