It’s a long and ignominious list. First there was Newt Gingrich.
Then came Mark Foley, David Vitter, Larry Craig, Chip Pickering
and Vito Fossella. Most recently there was John Ensign and Mark
Sanford.
Politically, sex scandals are equal opportunity destroyers. For
every David Vitter, there is an Eliot Spitzer. For every John
Ensign there’s a John Edwards. For every Bill Clinton
there’s…well, there’s only one Slick Willie. But you get the
point: sexual scandal knows no party.
Yet, a common denominator linking many political sex scandals of
the last few years is the involvement of conservative Christian
politicians, men who, it seemed, had made sexual responsibility
and marital fidelity cornerstones of their public and private
lives.
But these figures aren’t alone. They reflect a broader reality
among many conservative Christians struggling to live up to the
moral standards they espouse.
Consider Jon and Kate Gosselin, stars of Jon and Kate Plus
Eight, the immensely popular reality show that was once a
favorite of evangelicals. Jon and Kate are evangelical Christians
who raised their eight children on a combination of Christian
discipline and wholesome family values.
But the couple has spent the last year deflecting accusations of
infidelity and parental neglect. Jon and Kate separated in June,
and the tabloids are documenting the octoparents’ pitiful descent
into debauchery. The public is left wondering who’s looking after
the couple’s five-year-old sextuplets and twin girls.
Meanwhile Reverend Alberto Cutie, a Roman Catholic priest famous
as a commentator on Spanish language television, recently left
the church after tabloids revealed that he was having an affair.
The Cutie scandal came in the wake of thousands of substantiated
allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. Numerous
evangelical pastors have also resigned after scandals involving
allegations of sexual misconduct, from prostitution to statutory
rape.
Not surprisingly, many of the faithful are falling short too.
While practicing Christians and political conservatives rightly
warn of the perils of same-sex unions, it is in their own hands
that the institution of marriage has been in free fall.
In a 2008 study, The Barna Group, a Christian polling firm,
found that the divorce rate among evangelical Christians was
32 percent, statistically identical to the 33 percent figure
among non-evangelical American adults.
Political conservatives end their marriages at a higher rate than
the general population. The U.S. Census Bureau has found that the
highest divorce rates are in the Bible belt. And in 2007, “The
State of Our Unions” report by the National Marriage Project
(NMP) at Rutgers University concluded
that red-staters “are likely to be more religiously observant and
to belong to denominations that profess allegiance to more
conservative social values” but also are more likely to divorce
than those from blue states.
In a related problem, NMP found that red states tend to have
higher out-of-wedlock birth rates than the blue states. For
instance, While 37% of all births in the U.S. were out-of-wedlock
in 2005, the unwed birth percentages for the red states of
Mississippi (49%) and Louisiana (48%) were far ahead of those in
the blue states of New Hampshire (27%) and Minnesota (30%).
And new research suggests that religious Americans might be just
as likely as secular Americans to abort their unborn children. A
June study in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior,
a quarterly journal of the American Sociological Association,
found that female students at private, religious high schools
and colleges are more likely than their secular school
counterparts to have abortions.
Some commentators may be tempted to interpret these data as proof
that Christians no longer care about maintaining high standards
of moral conduct. But poll after poll shows that the protection
and promotion of marriage and unborn life remain top concerns for
Christians, both in their politics and in their personal
lives.
These studies and anecdotes prove only that Christians are
subject to the same temptations and moral weakness inherent in us
all. The sad stories of Governor Sanford and Jon and Kate reveal
how challenging it has become for the faithful to insulate
themselves from a society coarsened by tabloid values. These data
affirm the difficulty in following Jesus’ admonition to be in the
world but not of it.
Religious conservatives have become a consequential force over
the last few years by engaging in politics to defend the values
of sexual restraint, marital fidelity and respect for human life.
That’s a good thing. But to win the culture war, their passion to
defend these values in public policy must be matched by an equal
amount of passion to live them in their own lives.
