Moral Authorities

How can President Bush chastise Russia for invading Georgia, after he himself so recently invaded a sovereign nation?

And how can he chastise other countries for human rights shortcomings, after his administration has engaged in torture, extraordinary rendition, and warrantless wiretapping?

How can politicians and pundits like Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Rush Limbaugh espouse family values after multiple marriages and, often, affairs?

How can Bill Bennett write a book called The Book of Virtues while gambling away several hundred thousand dollars?

And how can Sarah Palin press abstinence programs on the country despite the very visible evidence in her own family that they don't work?

The problem here is that our moral authorities have no moral authority.

Hypocrisy

How come no one has pointed out that, of all the recent political sex scandals, the Democratic ones have involved consenting, heterosexual adults (Bill Clinton, Elliot Spitzer) while the Republican ones have involved homosexuality (Larry Craig, Ted Haggard, Jeff Gannon, Mark Foley...), soliciting minors (Mark Foley again), and teen pregnancy? How come no one has pointed out that families and areas with strong "family values" (read sexually repressive) have higher rates of teen pregnancy? Why isn't anyone drawing contrasts between Amy Carter and Chelsea Clinton, on one hand, and the Bush twins and Sarah Palin's seventeen year old daughter on the other? And why isn't anyone on the right questioning whether their focus on abstinence, faith, and marriage might be having exactly the opposite effect than the one they intend?

Supporters will say that Governor Palin's family should be off limits from the spotlight of politics. That would be fine, except that social conservatives are the ones who put the family in that spotlight in the first place. If they didn't want to impose their family-related values on the rest of us, I'd agree that private matters should be off limits. But they put that particular ball in play by supporting a sexually repressive social agenda, and they should be held responsible for the results when their own families fail to meet their own tests.