Who’s the Hypocrite?

I come down on the “Craig-must-resign” side of the fence (the man pleaded guilty to a crime), but I have to say that my disdain for the odious outing campaigns of Mike Rogers (and sanctioned by the likes of Glenn Greenwald) continues unabated. The only hypocrites here are the live-and-let-live left that continues to preach an absolute separation between public performance and private morality, and yet seeks to demolish that wall when it is politically expedient for them, doing so in the most personally invasive manner possible. For a self-proclaimed expert on and defender of privacy like Greenwald, the irony is rich.

Most Catholics reject the idea that being pro-choice disqualifies one of their brethren from public office. Evangelical voters in places like Iowa and South Carolina seem to do just fine in separating their deep personal suspicions of Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith with their support for his candidacy. Most poignantly, Dick Cheney stated his support for gay rights in the last campaign in an October town hall meeting in socially conservative Iowa, and was applauded. In the last weekend of the campaign, President Bush announced his support for civil unions. John Kerry and John Edwards tried to stoke wholly fabricated Evangelical hostility to Mary Cheney, and it probably cost them any chance of winning the election.

When it comes to personal morality and voting decisions, Christian conservatives are a lot more sophisticated than the hateful outers of the left. Their public agenda is not targeted at anyone’s personal behavior, but at legitimate public policy discussions about our government’s sanction of different behaviors. Agree or disagree, their agenda is a public agenda, advanced in the public square, and not through vicious smear tactics.

Using the outers’ logic, it is now legitimate to throw this time-hallowed tradition out the window, and for conservative Christians to inject their personal moral and theological views into their voting decisions, and in deciding who gets to continue in public office. Is that the road they really want to go down?

I could more easily see the case for hypocrisy in Ted Haggard, who preached against homosexual behavior. For all their obvious failings and predatory, even law-breaking, behavior, Larry Craig and Mark Foley never did that. Gay marriage and gays in the military are policy questions, not personal ones, and ones on which people of good faith can disagree. Opposing them does not make one a homophobe, or even anti-gay. And I think all of us should be offended by the notion that upholding the ideal of family values, even when we don’t always reach it, makes one a gay-baiter.

As someone who is happily married, it never occurred to me think of this status as a “right.” It is just that  — a status — one for 4,000 years conferred upon a man and a woman by society and nearly all religious congregations. If you think that statement makes me anti-gay, I’m afraid it’s more equal opportunity than that. See, I don’t believe there is a right to privacy in the Constitution, and that covers abortion, marriage, and any sexual behavior, straight or gay. Conferring the loaded language of “rights” to intimate relationships is patently ridiculous. Everyone has a basic right to function in society, to hold jobs, to have access to equal accommodations, etc. and that includes gays.

As for public benefits, we seem to be heading to a compromise where gays can be de facto married for the purposes of the state, more commonly under the umbrella of civil unions. That’s fine by me. I’m also fine with letting individual congregations be the keepers of the term “marriage,” defining it as narrowly or loosely as they see fit. This probably puts me in the libertarian camp. What I object to is the Left’s campaign to seizing the instrumentality of government to redefine the institution of marriage, thereby imposing it on the rest of society. They’re doing exactly what they accuse the worst elements of the Right of.

As for Craig’s personal life, that’s something he is going to have work through with his family. In the end, it would be better if more gays were able to serve openly in public life, as Republican Representatives Jim Kolbe and Steve Gunderson were, since the ones that don’t always seem to end their public lives in tragedy. And whatever Craig’s failings, they had nothing to do with his voting record.

Tagged: larry craig

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