Another senator bites the dust.

August 28, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has been arrested for lewd conduct in a Minneapolis airport men’s room. To me that sounds like homosexual conduct, although the news reports aren’t yet using that word. The arresting officer said the Senator was tapping his foot in a stall next to his — and giving other signals he was soliciting sexual contact. Craig denies he did anything wrong.  If you must, the police report was released by the Washington Post; there is more here than what meets the eye with which the senator sees the incident.

Here we go again, with officials in high and influential positions being revealed or revealing themselves as hypocritical and morally compromised. Depending on your political persuasions, you may rejoice or become defensive.

Craig is one of the social conservatives who has been standing firmly against our rights and our relationships. Now he joins a distinguished list of political leaders in sexual indiscretions. In an article titled “”Grand Old Perverts” Jeff in Milwaukee last year posted a list of Republican members of Congress who “have been caught with their pants down” in the last 25 years, either having admitted to misconduct, or had allegations substantially corroborated.  His full explanation is here.

In addition to Mark Foley (R-FL) who resigned a year ago after inappropriate contact with a 16-year old congressional page, there were: Robert Barr (R-GA); Robert Bauman (R-MD); Jim Bunn (R-OR); Dan Burton (R-IN); Ken Calvert (R-CA); Charles Canaday (R-FL); Helen Chenowith (R-ID); Duke Cunningham (R-CA); Thomas Evans (R-IN); Newt Gingrich (R-GA); Tim Hutchinson (R-AK and also a Baptist minister); Henry Hyde (R-IL); Bob Livingston (R-LA); Donald Lukens (R-OH); Sue Myrick (R-NC); Robert Packwood (R-OR); John Peterson (R-PA); Don Shorewood (R-PA); John Schmitz (R-CA); Ed Schrock (R-VA); Strom Thurmond (R-SC); and J. C. Watts (R-OK). 

Jeff in Milwaukee didn’t mention (in his 9/06 article) Florida State Rep. Bob Allen, who has fought against LGBT rights in Florida, and was charged with offering $20 to a cop for oral sex in a public washroom in a park in July.

Commentators seldom link these political implosions with the sexual abuse cases in the Roman Catholic priesthood. Or for that matter, the swift vertical fall of Rev. Ted Haggard from both his pulpit and his presidency in the National Association of Evangelicals, after a 3-year relationship with a male prostitute.  (A quick Google search for “evangelists + sex scandal” turned up about 367,000 hits.) 

Moral America is literally awash in sexual scandals cloaked in hypocrisy. These are all closely linked, because in each case, people who have both specific authority and tremendous public influence over others by virtue of their office, are revealed as morally compromised or corrupted. A large number of them were same-sex indiscretions, but not all. None of them deserve their claims to stand on a higher moral ground.

There is one other thing which most of these sexually corrupted members of Congress have in common with members of the Catholic priesthood: they are men. Perhaps if moral conservatives really want to clean up America’s morals, they should propose a federal constitutional amendment that bars all males from running for office or holding positions of authority.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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