On hypocrisy

By now everybody knows about Sen. Craig. Sen. Craig has worked very hard to pass anti-gay discrimination laws before he was found trying to have anonymous gay sex in a public restroom at an airport. Until today, he's been the best friend of Idaho Values Alliance (they have since scrubbed their website of all that affection).

Prior to the election, prior to this event in the restroom, when evidence surfaced that the senator had been propositioning men, conservatives from Michelle Malkin to Glenn Reynolds decried the investigative stories and called it "sexual McCarthyism." These folks did not want the investigation to continue, they did not want "the truth," they wanted the stories to stop. (Curiously, they didn't say anything about sexual McCarthyism when Clinton was having problems). You see, an election was on the line, so nobody cared about family values just then.

Now that the election is over, and Craig has pled guilty, there are now two reactions (remarkably similar to what happened with Ted Haggard):

1) On the one hand, the exact same conservatives that came to Craig's defense, suddenly remember their family values, act all shocked and offended and call for his resignation, and

2) On the other hand, folks like Idaho Family Values blame the homosexuals and the liberals because they lack compassion for this honorable man and his family. One wonders where conservative "compassion" is when the shoe is on the other foot, because I've never seen it.

It's obvious, yet again, that the family values movement has nothing to do with family values. It is, and probably has always been, about power and wealth.

I have always found it both interesting and scary that Jesus was quick to forgive thieves and prostitutes, but remained quite angry and bitter towards the hypocrites. Interesting because Jesus seems to find the people who are hypocrites about thievery or prostitution or whatever, worse sinners than the sins they name. Scary because we're all hypocrites in some ways--we all fail to do what we say is right. But sometimes our hypocrisy has the power to inflict great damage on others, as it has time and time again for "family values" leaders like Craig or Ted Haggard and the organizations that work with them and are at least as hypocritical.