Adultery and Politics (Religious conservatives often go wrong by focusing on sexual sins)

With Herman Cain’s announcement that he was suspending his presidential campaign because of the charges of sexual harassment and of a 13-year-long affair, issues are raised that the country would do well to think through.

The two most obvious are whether we should care about a politician’s sexual life, and how much the press should report about these matters.

But there is a larger issue that needs to be addressed first: What does adultery tell us about a person?

For many Americans, the answer is, “Pretty much all we need to know.” This certainly seems to be the case with regard to presidential candidates. The view is expressed this way: “If he can’t keep his vows to his wife, how can we trust him to keep his vows to his country?”

I am a religious conservative, but I know this statement has no basis in fact. It sounds persuasive, but it is a non-sequitur. We have no reason to believe that men who have committed adultery are less likely to be great leaders, or that men who have always been faithful are more likely to be great leaders. To religious readers, I point to God Himself, who apparently thought that King David deserved to remain king, and even have the Messiah descend from him, despite a particularly ugly form of covering up his adultery (sending Bathsheba’s husband into battle where he would assuredly be killed).

And while we are on the subject of leadership, another question for religious and/or conservative readers who believe that a man who sexually betrays his wife is likely to betray his country: Which would you prefer for president — a pro-life conservative who had had an affair, or a pro-choice man of the Left who had always been faithful to his wife?

• Jimmy Carter, to the best of our knowledge, has been faithful to his wife throughout their long marriage. That is certainly commendable. Did it make him in any way a better president? Has it given moral acuity to the man who wrote a book equating democratic Israel with apartheid South Africa?

• The American who may have singlehandedly prevented inter-racial war in America, Martin Luther King Jr., committed adultery on a number of occasions.

• Would John F. Kennedy, a serial adulterer while in the White House, have been any different a president were he faithful?

Just knowing that a man or a woman has had extramarital sex may tell us nothing about the person that is relevant to his or her public life. I have always wanted to know: Why is sexual sin in general, and adultery in particular, the one sin that many religious people regard as defining a person, as well as a sin that is almost unforgiveable?

Nothing here is in any way meant to be a defense of adultery. As a religious Jew, I believe it violates one of the Ten Commandments. As a married person, I know how much it would hurt my wife if I did it, and how much it would hurt me if my wife had an affair.

But marriage is too complex an arena to draw any immediate conclusions about a person. Are we to label a man who takes loving care a wife with Alzheimer’s and who has a discreet affair no more than an adulterer who merits disdain and mistrust? Is a woman who stays in an emotionally abusive marriage for the sake of her children someone with little integrity because she sought to be held in another man’s loving arms? The questions and nuances are innumerable.

And what is adultery? Women have called my radio show to tell me that a man who gets a lap dance has committed adultery. Others go further — saying that merely attending a strip show, or looking at Playboy, is adultery. To my mind this is emotion, not reason, morality, or religion. Yes, many Christians cite Jesus as saying that a man who lusts after a woman other than his wife has committed adultery with his heart. But Jesus made it clear that this is adultery with the heart. Jesus, a practicing and knowledgeable Jewish rabbi, would never equate actual adultery with adultery with one’s heart. And if someone believes the two are morally identical, why not start asking candidates if they have ever lusted for any woman other than their wife?

In choosing a president of the United States, adultery would greatly matter to me if it were engaged in indiscreetly. I don’t trust the integrity or conscience of a man or woman who publicly humiliates his or her spouse.

Beyond that, I do not want to know anything about the sexual life of any candidate. Media reporting or questioning about candidates’ sexual lives constitutes a form of hypocrisy so deep that the English language does not have a word for it. Media people report on the sexual lives of candidates — for virtually any public office — on the grounds that since these politicians have great power, the public needs to know all about them. Yet, they offer no insight into their own sexual lives, even though some in the news media are far more powerful than almost any politician except the president of the United States. If we cannot trust a candidate who committed adultery, then why can we trust a news reporter or editor who has committed adultery?

The only thing this preoccupation with candidates’ sexual lives has achieved is to ensure that some of the best, brightest, finest, and most honest men in America never run for office.

Same applies. If the candidate doesn’t meet my test, I don’t vote for them.

Lots of people on this site say they won’t vote for Romney, and I’m one of them. I’m deciding whether I could vote for Gingrich if he is the nominee.

That is not completely based on adultery, though that does go to issues surrounding his judgment that are completely valid. In the end, my vote will be about conservatism, and I have serious doubts about Gingrich’s conservatism.

And, save any argument you may have about ‘a third party vote is a vote for Obama’. It’s a vote for the candidate of my choice.

We’re living longer but turning kids into adults earlier. Why?

You have it the exact opposite. This very question IS the problem. We now have 32 year old "kids" living in their mom's basement.

OWS is entirely made up of 20+ "kids".

In the time of the revolution people did not die at 35. Do not be silly. Ben Franklin and other lived to be nearly 100. And going back to even ancient times, perhaps centuries. Yet the Jewish traditions were adulthood at 14.

Adolescence is a 20th century psychological invention, intentionally devised to dumb down a society.

The average college graduate today would FAIL the end of year test of the 18th century 1st grader in the New England Primer.

Our low birth rate, declining population, abortion, debt, immigration, 100% of all our problems can be traced back to this 20th century German Socialism called K-12 education.

And we all better be doing some fast growing up or our real children will curse our names as slaves wondering how we ever let things come to this point.

I had to go back and check my post... I said the MIDDLE AGES, as in plague, disease, filth, and pestilence middle ages.

Also, the original article was concerning sexual sins, not older kids living with their parents.

Now that’s out of the way, I don’t disagree with you. Our public schools have actually set progress in this country back more than it has moved us forward. Liberal progressivism and the more recent radical feminist movement have changed the landscape in this country for the worst.

Dennis has forever been preoccupied with sex and adultery. He’s had 3 wives. It must be a subject he has struggled with. He knows that a good person can stray.

Strong bold men often take decades to learn how to tame their libidos. These are sometimes the kind of men we have running for office. Adultery is not good but there are Many sins and no candidates who don’t sin in some way.

We can and have lived with leaders that have been unfaithful to their wi ES. to their wives

Just because all candidates sin, it doesn’t mean all sins are the same. My issue isn’t with Newt Gingrich so much as people who attempt to excuse sin. Plus, Mr. Prager insults Christians by making it look like we’re a bunch of unreasonable, narrow minded, holier-than-thou people. I’m sure there are some very few Christians who would make their decision about Newt based solely on his adultery, but I’ve never met anyone like that.

The Christians I know are generally very thoughtful people who reflect on the serious issues of life and morality. We understand sin and the good and evil forces waging war in men far better than unbelievers who often deny true good or evil even exist. Mr. Prager is ridiculous to suggest that we don’t evaluate the whole candidate, both good and bad, when we vote. Frankly, Newt Gingrich has quite a few problems beyond infidelity.

I haven’t heard in the past Dennis insulting Christians. If he did so here I denounce that. I do think there are some bad things about Gingrich that have nothingbto do with his infidelity, I agree. I personally do not look forward to voting for him.

I wish Cain could have been more forthright. We would have been very forgiving.

Mr. Prager carefully framed his words, but why would he even write an article like this if he wasn’t directing it at religious conservatives who he apparently believes focus too much on a nominee’s sins when voting? Like I wrote, that’s a veiled insult at religious voters for not being able to think beyond our religion. That is pretty much standard boilerplate from some nonreligious conservatives and nearly all liberals who pretty much see religious folk as irrational rubes.

Actually in the Middle Ages, at least in England, once people survived infancy, and women survived child bearing, they often lived to the 70s and even 80s. Barring plagues, of course. I also found that the nobility married very young - mid teens - beacause they were wealthy, but the working class - tradesmen and so on - had to wait until their mid to late 20s because they had to get the money together. A lot of new reserach using contemporaneous documents has turned up in the last decade or more. Very interesting.

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