***Scroll down for updates – important clarification below***
Woe to the people running for and holding public office with big skeletons in their closets.
Nothing is private or off limits or sacred.
If there’s dirt to dish, somebody, somewhere will find it.
If you run for public office, your private business becomes public, fair or unfair. You should know that going in.
But what do you do when someone accuses you of being a closeted homosexual who frequents public restrooms? Let’s say it’s true, and you’re married with children and grandchildren. Do you admit it? Let’s say it’s a foul lie. Do you sue for defamation?
I learned from Captain Ed and Patterico this morning that the radical (and little crazy) homosexual blogger Mike Rogers, who “outs” closeted homosexuals, publicly accused Republican Senator Larry Craig of cruising public restrooms for sex with men. Senator Craig denies the nasty allegations.
I find the whole thing disgusting, true or not. When I say I don’t care who people sleep with, I mean it…as long as it’s not in my face. Keep your business to yourself, and don’t define yourself by or try to turn your bedroom activities into a political cause. But that is what the homosexual agenda is about. Two to three percent of the population, people whose sexual orientation got mixed up somehow — genetically, environmentally, or how ever — want to flip the culture upside down, demand special rights, and tell the rest of us how to think. It won’t work with me.
Homosexuality, among a multitude of other things, is unbiblical, and as a Christian, I can’t ignore that. And my encounters with homosexuals in the blogosphere and political arena have been downright unpleasant, so that doesn’t help matters. And I’m impervious to charges of “homophobia.” Utterly meaningless to me.
Now if Senator Craig really is a homosexual, bisexual — whatever — that’s not my business, either. That’s between himself and his family. But here is where I depart with fellow conservative bloggers: If a person speaks out against laws, policies, lifestyles, etc., that you support and you find out he is doing the thing he speaks against, should you expose them as a hypocrite?
I suppose the equivalent for me would be a “closeted” Christian lawmaker pushing for IRS investigations of churches and Christian non-profit organizations, or criticizing the “religious right” as nuts. Let’s say this person goes to church secretly and shares the Gospel with strangers. Through various sources, I find a few people who’ve heard the politician’s testimony or saw him sitting in a pew in disguise or something. It’s a stretch, but you get the idea. Do I expose him or protect his privacy? If I think he’s harassing churches and being unnecessarily critical and anti-Christian, do I sit on the info, or blog it for the world to see?
The bottom line is that what Rogers is doing may not be classy. On some level, it might be awful. But if someone were preaching (real or imagined) at you or voting against laws helpful to your cause, and you knew for a fact they weren’t practicing what they preached, what would you do?
Update: Glenn Greenwald says:
As should be painfully obvious, the issue with Larry Craig…or Newt Gingrich’s multiple, overlapping broken marriages — isn’t to apply our moral standards to their private lives, but is to apply their own publicly claimed moral standards, as well as the core tactics of the GOP, to document that they live in utter contradiction to the sexual morality they relentlessly embrace for policial gain (an exceedingly simple concept which the intellectually honest LaShawn Barber patiently tries to explain to her fellow Bush supporters, as does Pam Spaulding, a little less patiently).
By the way, I don’t like Newt Gingrich.
Update II: I received a few e-mails from Christians who consider themselves homosexuals. At this point I need to clarify something. Being homosexual — attracted to people of the same sex — is not the sin. It’s the practice of homosexuality that’s sinful. Personal illustration: The Bible teaches that fornication — sex outside marriage — is a sin. My being attracted to men is not sinful, but having sex with a man I’m not married to is sinful. It’s a rough analogy, but you get the idea.
Later…Pink purge? Good grief…
A compliment, of sorts: “I read Ms. Barber’s blog because she’s intelligent and I agree with almost nothing she writes. Reading opposing views helps me flesh out my ideas and beliefs.”
Hey, if I can be of assistance…
