Public Officials Outed For Their Hypocrisy

I heard some news recently and thought, "Good for Larry Flynt!"

Whoa there, you are probably thinking. What on earth are you doing giving an accolade to the founder of the pornographic Hustler Magazine?

Well, let me just say that it's not what you think. I don't support Flynt's pornographic magazine, and his other business pursuits that revolve around smut. However, to show that I can be reasonably objective, I try to call a spade a spade, and when I see Flynt making reward money available to expose the hypocrisy amongst lawmakers, politicians, religious leaders, and other high-profile officials, I have to applaud him on that, since some of these same officials are acting two faced in making laws against pornographic materials, same sex marriage, abortion; meanwhile, their lives behind closed doors reek of hypocrisy.

Take, for instance, the latest on that David Vitters guy. Congressman in Louisiana who is married with four kids. Was recently outed has having been on the list of patrons for some high-end escort service a number of years ago. Strangely, until the story broke, he never admitted this. After the story broke, he started sounding contrite and talked about "serious sin" in his past, etc. I'd think for any politician who has some skeletons in the past, better expose them before starting to champion family values or what not. I have no issues with someone who has had a not-so-delightful past publicly recognize that they have since moved on and have received forgiveness, etc. At least you know that they have some credibility, being able to admit that they were not so perfect, but learned from mistakes. For Vitters to now come clean AFTER he is discovered; well, I don't really feel sorry for this guy, no different from that idiot Bill Clinton (who was not a conservative) who bold-faced lie to the American people on national television.

Of course, Vitters, just like evangelist Ted Haggard, claimed that he got nude massages, but no sex was exchanged (kind of funny, with the amount of registered massage therapists out there, you'd turn to either an escort service or male prostitute for a massage). Yeah, whatever.

Also recent news is the absolutely mind-numbing $660 million settlement between the Roman Catholic church and victims of sexual abuse (in the U.S.). As my wife and I read through numerous headlines, we were shocked by how widespread this abuse was - settlements were reached in various States with various amounts of victims. This just proves to me the whole fallacy behind the requirement of priests remaining celebate. The Bible talks about (in 1 Corinthians, I believe, about the fact that "it is better to marry than burn with passion." As human beings, we all have sexual urges, and unless a person is clearly gifted with the gift of celibacy (I don't consider it a gift, but anyway...), I'd say don't bother getting in a position where you'll get tempted. In my entire life on this earth, I have only met one person who (maybe) has demonstrated that she has this gift, and that's only from conversations and such that I've had with her. I would say that women would more likely have this gift than men, but I am not here to discuss celibacy, so let's move on...

How about "Dr. Laura" Schlessinger. Against birth control (never understood this), but she had her tubes tied, speaks out against adultery even though she committed it, does not believe in divorce, but she got divorced. Again, if it's in your past, but you have changed and you admit your past and move on, that's one thing. But if you are, say, preaching against homosexual relationships, while you are covertly pursing one - that's much more damaging to your credibility than admitting your past, but realizing that some mistakes you did make helped shape a different position on an issue.

This sort of goes back to my blog posting on the "myth of nice guys" (search my blog from last month - June 2006 - and you'll see it). I still maintain that those who seem to have a perfect life and perfect relationship in public likely have the most to hide.

Last year, there was Mark Foley, the Florida congressman who sent sexually explicit messages to his male pages (the text of these are public record, but pretty disturbing considering how bold an elected official will be in using such a traceable medium such as email. This didn't stop one guy (last name was Doyle, I think), who was like 4th in command at the department of Homeland Security in the U.S., who last year was busted on the spot for sexually laced emails to what he thought was a 14-year-old girl (literally - the police showed up at his door while he on his computer). This guy (55) even sent photos of himself wearing his official Department of Homeland Security badge, and passed along his government land line and cell phone numbers to this 14-year-old girl, who was obviously really a police officer. How a guy as dumb as this gets a high level government job with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, I will never understand. No wonder they haven't found Osama Bin Laden yet.

See, some scandals I'm not surprised about (like that Minnesota Viking "love boat" scandal). These guys never claimed to be above-the-board moral types, and they are not really in a position to be considered role models anyway. But I think for anyone to step into the public eye on either a political or religious platform based on some subset of moral values, better examine yourself first to make sure that you are consciously able to follow your convictions without some hidden stuff in your closet.