Since folks in the comments are mentioning the present troubles of Senator David Vitter, of Louisiana, I suppose that I should say a few words. For many of us in Louisiana, this is old news, for rumors have been flying about his infidelity for years. Now everyone knows.
According to the Washington Post on July 9, 2007:
Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) apologized last night after his telephone number appeared in the phone records of the woman dubbed the "D.C. Madam," making him the first member of Congress to become ensnared in the high-profile case.
The statement containing Vitter's apology said his telephone number was included on phone records of Pamela Martin and Associates dating from before he ran for the Senate in 2004.
So. He's asked forgiveness of his wife, and she has forgiven him, and presumably he's been a good boy since then. That's OK by me. In a few years, he will face the voters again, and we will have to decide whether he will be our senator.
However, Sen. Vitter was a force behind the bill to ban gay marriage, saying earlier, again from the Washington Post:
"I don't believe there's any issue that's more important than this one," said Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican. "I think this debate is very healthy, and it's winning a lot of hearts and minds. I think we're going to show real progress."
In the opinion of many of those who oppose gay marriage, it would destroy the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, when, in fact, it is such things as infidelity which destroy the sanctity of marriage.
Note also that the good senator made that statement about the prime importance of the issue of gay marriage while portions of New Orleans remained devastated by Katrina and the flood.
UPDATE: For several livelier and more informative posts on David Vitter, you might want to visit the site of my friend Oyster at Your Right Hand Thief.
It would seem to me that he'd be a prime candidate for the compost heap. But wouldn't most politicians?
ReplyDeleteMost politicians practice the "Boston Market" method of marriage: one woman, one man, and his two or three side dishes.
ReplyDeleteAs I have long held, it's not gays and lesbians who are going to destroy the 'sanctity of marriage'; the heterosexuals have been doing a fine job of it for many years. Snarky remark for the night but it seems as though the whole blogosphere is nuts right now.
ReplyDeleteIt would seem to me that he'd be a prime candidate for the compost heap.
ReplyDeleteYou never know. The folks in New Orleans reelected "Dollar Bill" Jefferson - the guy who had $90,000 in his freezer and has now been indicted.
PJ, That's the first I hear of the "Boston Market". It seems that the self-righteous, family values types most bear watching.
We heteros have definitely played our part in the decline of the sanctity of marriage.
As a heterosexual who has done her best (albeit unwittingly) to destroy the institution of marriage, I resent the credit being given to the GLBTs!
ReplyDelete(Although I guess they get SOME credit for the first one, since that husband was gay...but please, people! Unless you know something I don't, the second one was purely hetero, and GLBTs had nothing to do with it!)
Doxy, I hope that you don't think that I was pointing my finger at specific people. Serial marriages are coming to be the norm in the US.
ReplyDeleteIt's amusing to hear the politicians run on about the sanctity of marriage - which is in such a sorry state - saying we must keep guard over lest gay marriages destroy it.
In addition, these people lead us into sin by bloating us with unseemly, unchristian, "knew-it; they're-all-like-that!" glee whenever another one of them falls by the wayside. And to have the gall to try and pull the "God and the Little Woman have forgiven me" thing!
ReplyDeleteWe've got a good one brewing over in SC, where the new State Treasurer, Thomas Ravenel, also a Giuliani supporter (Giuliani's state chairman) was recently indicted on Federal cocaine possession and distribution charges (not much - just 500 gr, or, as a local TV station said, to put things in context, "about 4 1/2 cups"). He's on the right-wing of the SC Republican party, which in SC is saying something, and was assumed to be preparing to challenge a sitting Republican US senator believed by many of being too "liberal" (also suspected by not a few of being a little "light in the loafers" - i.e. gay). Ravenel is, of course, big on "family values", notwithstanding divorce after a short-lived marriage and his widely-reported (widely-reported NOW) singles bar-hopping.
Wishful thinking's a futile exercise, but if just two or three more Republican senators had been up for re-election this last time around ....
Nevertheless, if my congressman introduced a bill against, say, bribery, and then turned out to have been taking bribes himself, I don't see how that fact should change my feelings about the wrongness of bribery.
ReplyDeleteThe corruption of good at least implies that there is something good to corrupt. The ubiquity of hypocrisy seems an unfortunate result of our condition, but doesn't suggest to me that the way to go is the abandonment of standards, even if damaged long ago.
Vitter's voting record is interesting as well, beyond the "family values" spiel.
ReplyDeleteMimi--I knew you weren't pointing fingers! I was just joking.
ReplyDeleteRick---those who purport to lecture the rest of us on morality had better be squeaky clean, or we have no obligation to listen to them at all. (I might argue that we have an obligation to ridicule them for their hypocrisy, but I'm mean that way.)
People fail to live up to their ideals all the time---that is forgiveable.
What is *not* forgiveable is the case where people who can't live up to the hotly contested ideals they want to FORCE on the rest of us fail---and STILL want to force their "morality" on us by fiat.
I frankly wouldn't care about the state of Senator Vitter's marriage if he hadn't set himself up as the champion of the Victorian ideal of the nuclear family (an ideal that was not shared by preceding centuries).
ReplyDeleteWhen people claim the role of public moral scold, they set themselves up for these situations.
The ubiquity of hypocrisy seems an unfortunate result of our condition, but doesn't suggest to me that the way to go is the abandonment of standards, even if damaged long ago.
ReplyDeleteRick, who said that we should abandon standards? I don't see that anyone did. I don't understand at all the leaps of mind that you make in some of your comments.
Those who scream the loudest about moral values are the ones that need watching the most, to see if they practice what they preach. It's the hypocrisy. Jesus had a few choice words to say about hypocrites. I've been married for 46 years. I believe in the sanctity of marriage. Again, it's the hypocrisy.
Lapin, you're right. News like this tempts us to tar all the politicians with the same brush, and there are a few decent ones around.
Paul, he was never my man for the Senate. He voted the opposite of how I would have wanted most of the time. He almost never represented me. My only wonder is that the current news was so long in coming out in the mainstream press.
When people claim the role of public moral scold, they set themselves up for these situations.
Counterlight, exactly. It's the scolds, the ones who so often point the finger at the misdeeds of others, but who are not squeaky clean themselves, who should definitely know better.
Boston Market may be a regional thing. It's a rotisserie chicken place. Lots of side dishes. How many do you want? 2? 3? 4?
ReplyDeleteAnyway. I don't know about this whole sanctity-of-marriage business. There are marriages of love, marriages of convenience, arranged marriages, forced marriages. Marriage is a word. Ultimately, it takes the wife and husband (or husband and husband or wife and wife) to make it into something holy.
To that end, politicians would do well to keep their mouths shut about other people's marriages. The politicians work for us, not the other way 'round.
PJ, what I mean by the sanctity of marriage is that I took my marriage vows, intending to keep them for my lifetime and/or my husband's lifetime. That's the ideal.
ReplyDeleteOf course, every marriage is not made in heaven, and there are those that must be ended. My mother should have separated from my alcoholic father. We would all have been better off. I used to wish that she would get us out of our terrible situation.
But I hang on to the ideal. Maybe I'm old fashioned.
Grandmère Mimi, if there's one thing you're not, it's old-fashioned.
ReplyDeleteI've read your posts about your family (I don't always comment) and I have to consider myself pretty lucky -- my parents were wonderful, and would definitely still be married if my father were alive. And all my sibs have been married for ages. And I'm married! Some days I kind of wish I wasn't, but maybe that's to be expected.
But marriage between two people who've freely chosen to be together out of love is a fairly recent phenomenon on this planet. (So you're newfangled.)
I just don't think "sanctity" of any kind is something that can or should be legislated. It's not the business government should be in. Pols shouldn't even use the word. They cheapen it.
PJ, "sanctity" is perhaps not the word of choice. I think of love, fidelity, mutual compromise, and hanging in through tough times as part of the ideal, just so the tough times do not include abuse and other unspeakable acts that no one should have to live with.
ReplyDelete