Posted on 10/18/2012 2:44:24 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Dinesh D'Souza, the former president of a New York Christian college who recently came under fire after it was revealed that he was engaged to a woman while still married to his wife of 20 years, released an article to his website on Wednesday declaring he did not have an affair.
In the article, D'Souza claims World Magazine didn't present all of the facts when it reported that he and his fiancée, Denise Odie Joseph II, stayed in a hotel room together while in town for an apologetics conference in Spartanburg, S.C., in late September. D'Souza and his wife, Dixie, have been separated for two years but are still legally married.
"I met Denise three months ago. We are not and have not been having an affair. Nor did we share a hotel room in Charlotte," wrote D'Souza. The original report by the magazine quoted Alex McFarland, one of the conference's organizers, who said D'Souza admitted to him that he and Joseph stayed in the same room together, though D'Souza claimed "nothing happened" between them.
Tony Beam, who was also mentioned in the magazine's article and was another one of the conference's organizers, escorted D'Souza and Joseph between the airport, the conference and the hotel.
Beam told The Christian Post on Thursday that Joseph's arrival with D'Souza was somewhat unexpected to the event's organizers – they did not make plans for an extra hotel room for her. But D'Souza's assistant told Beam's assistant they would take care of it. Beam had forgotten that D'Souza was married at first, so upon their arrival he didn't question D'Souza when he introduced Joseph as his fiancée.
He later drove the couple from the conference to the hotel, and was present to make sure the check-in process went smoothly. He says they only checked into one room, though he acknowledged that Joseph could have possibly checked into another room later that evening.
"It was one room. In my presence, there was not a discussion about another room," said Beam.
He arrived early to pick the couple up the next morning. When he had the hotel clerk call up to D'Souza's room, the teller told him, "They said, 'Give us 10 minutes.'" "I did not see them go into a room together; I did not see them coming out of a room together. All of this took place in the lobby," Beam emphasized.
He later contacted Alex McFarland, another one of the conference's organizers, to tell him what he had witnessed because, though he hadn't witnessed them sharing the same room, he was suspicious of the couple. McFarland sounded surprised, said Beam, because he knew D'Souza was married. McFarland called D'Souza to ask him whether or not he had stayed in the same hotel room as Joseph, and, according to World Magazine's report, D'Souza admitted that he had.
But D'Souza says McFarland was "fronting for" World Magazine's reporter, Warren Smith, to fish for information regarding what happened that night. D'Souza claims he never told McFarland that he and Joseph stayed in the same room, and that either McFarland or Smith lied in their account of the conversation.
"I clearly told McFarland that Denise and I stayed in separate rooms," wrote D'Souza. "McFarland knew he didn't have what he wanted, because he subsequently called me back and asked me again. I realized McFarland may be fronting for Smith, so I told him I didn't have any further comment. I'm not sure whether McFarland is lying or Smith is lying, but one of them made up the quotation attributed to me that we stayed in the same room but 'nothing happened.' This is pure libel."
McFarland provided CP with a statement Wednesday but declined to comment further. "Although I had no knowledge of Dinesh's personal life, none of us is above reproach and we all need a Savior. I will continue to pray for him and help point him toward living the godly life he's always lived."
D'Souza also sought legal advice to make sure he could legally be engaged before being divorced, and said he and Joseph were "trying to do the right thing."
"I had no idea that it is considered wrong in Christian circles to be engaged prior to being divorced, even though in a state of separation and in divorce proceedings," said D'Souza. "Obviously I would not have introduced Denise as my fiancé at a Christian apologetics conference if I had thought or known I was doing something wrong."
While Beam says it is possible that D'Souza was genuinely unaware of this general Christian belief, he was still surprised by the statement.
"It certainly surprises me," said Beam. "I mean I certainly would think that if you've been in conservative evangelical circles ... that you would, at some point, kind of pick up on the idea that announcing an engagement to a woman when you are still legally married to another woman would be a problem."
Glenn Stanton, marriage expert and director for family formation studies at Focus on the Family, told CP that the separation of a struggling married couple can be a good thing – it gives them time to think and work on their issues – but says "it's not a good idea" to become romantically involved before a marriage has officially ended.
"It's not honoring to the marriage that tragically has died, and not honoring to the spouse, the children of that marriage, and not even honoring to the heart of the individual who is going through the divorce ... It's not wise from really any perspective," said Stanton. Although D'Souza says he can be legally engaged and married at the same time, Stanton says the spiritual marriage covenant is still in effect.
"It's disappointing that he was interested in the legal standpoint but not in the Christian standpoint. Legally, that may be no problem ... but, in essence, when you get engaged before your marriage is actually ended, you are on the on-ramp to bigamy," said Stanton.
Stanton, who recognized it would not legally be considered bigamy unless D'Souza tried to marry Joseph before his divorce is finalized, described being in such a relationship as "attitudinal bigamy."
Since the controversy began, D'Souza has suspended his engagement with Joseph. He filed for divorce on Oct. 4, several days after the conference ended, but says he had been working with attorneys on the filing process two weeks before the actual filing date.
D'Souza and his wife of 20 years, Dixie, have been separated for two years. The controversy with Joseph has led to his resignation as president of The King's College in New York. Still, Stanton says, there is hope, however unlikely, for D'Souza to reconcile his relationship with his wife.
"There's always hope for reconciliation," said Stanton. "I mean, Jesus raised people from the dead."
In addition to his former role as college president, D'Souza is also the best-selling author of What's So Great About Christianity and The Roots of Obama's Rage. He is also the co-director and star of the popular political documentary, "2016: Obama's America."
I haven’t passed judgement on him. I have said he was stupid and brings negative publicity to Christians, his cause to enlighten the American people about Obama, and conservative politics. He did that to himself by not making wise decisions.
You are being hypersensitive because one of our own got caught doing something really stupid. Really, really, stupid. Whether he actually slept with her is irrelevant, the appearance of impropriety is all it takes to lessen his effectiveness. We should demand and hold accountable those that represent us in the public arena.
I had a pastor years ago that never closed the door to his office if he had a woman in there and his wife wasn’t present. That same lesson should be taken to everyone of our lives, not matter how private or public.
I raised my son to understand this. When he dates a young woman, it is his job to lift her up, to make her blameless to society. And I don’t think he is a very public figure, but the same rules apply.
Putting aside the problematic nature of the claim that inadvertently letting one single person (who turned out to be quite a gossip) figure out that he was staying in the same hotel room as a woman is "broadcasting" - you've missed the larger point.
As I pointed out above, if he had gotten a fully papered divorce from his wife on court letterhead, then had a nice church wedding with his new girlfriend and then stayed in that hotel room - he would still be committing adultery under the Gospel standard.
Unless, of course, we have proof that his actual wife committed porneia as per Matthew 19:9.
All the "conservative Biblical evangelicals" who are currently engaged in fraudulent "second marriages" are just as guilty as D'Souza of adultery.
What is a hypocrite, rmlew?
Someone who pretends to be one thing and is actually another.
World magazine's editorial staff claim to be Biblical literalists, but their literalism is very fluid and flexible when it comes to the Biblical standard of adultery.
Their pillorying of D'Souza is highly selective, and interestingly timed.
At least the Pharisees of John 7 were wise enough to drop their stones and walk away quietly, instead of writing up a fancy article on the woman taken in adultery in Olam magazine.
“And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” - Jesus, Matthew 19:9
The point is that they went republican with 52% in 2004, the few times that Catholics have voted republican have aleays been pretty narrow, and I don’t think it is based on economics, but familiarity.
With the exception of Reagan in 1980 and his veep H W in 1988, they chose the republican in his second term after voting against him in his first.
It was a question. Why do you think that Catholics have almost always voted democrat? Meaning that we know that Catholics have almost always voted democrat, do you have any ideas for why they are so liberal, why they voted for Obama and Al Gore for instance?
In regards to your post 58, I don’t know what you were trying to say, it didn’t make any sense.
Catholic vote is 50-50....show me where it isn’t. One 50% thinks that “social justice” trumps all......And they MOST LIKELY don;t givie anything else to the poor other than what comes out of their paychecks. The OTHER 50% gives and gives and gives to the poor out of their AFTER TAXED moiney!!
None of this changes the facts of 2016. Libs are pointing, ‘Look, look what he has done!’ I’m not looking!
In 2008 for instance the Catholic vote was 54% for the radically pro-abortion Obama and 45% republican.
In all of our history the Catholic vote has only gone republican 6 times, (5 by some data).
They are not a 50/50 vote, Protestants on the other hand, only voted democrat in 1932, 1936, and 1964.
Daughter?
You mean white Protestants, ansel12.
No I don’t, not at all, that was a silly post.
It merely means that those were the only years that the majority of the Protestant vote went for the democrat candidate.
3 posted on Thu Oct 18 2012 16:49:17 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time) by wideawake: “Interesting that World Magazine decides to do a takedown of D’Souza, the director of 2016, just three weeks before the election.”
I agree that the timing was terrible.
However, that timing was D’Souza’s choice, not the choice of the reporter. A Christian college president separated from his wife needs to avoid any public contact with **ANY** women, not take her into his hotel room while attending a Christian conference, let along as one of the speakers. Even if the hotel was all booked up, wasn't there any woman anywhere at the conference who could pay a few extra dollars for an extra guest to sleep in their room?
Granted, this looks really bad, and it smells of a Chicago-style attack.
However, that doesn't make sense. It was D’Souza’s decision to take the woman to the conference. If anything, since the editor of World Magazine, Marvin Olasky, used to be the provost of Kings College and resigned because of then-unexplained differences with D’Souza, it is quite likely that Olasky has been aware of the situation for some time and was exercising a lot of patience in **NOT** reporting it until D’Souza took this woman to his hotel room.
Under the circumstances, World Magazine really had no choice but to run the story and do it before the election.
Here's why.
What would you do if you were a reporter attending a Christian conference and found out that one of the speakers was sharing a room with a woman not his wife and was claiming to be engaged to her? (Yes, I know some of those facts are in dispute, but that's what the reporter believed to be true.)
I've been in similar situations several times.
A few years ago I discovered shortly before an election that the largest single donor to a Republican candidate for county prosecutor was the owner of a local strip club. His contribution was very large by the standards of local politics — more than many campaigns spend for their entire budget — and then I discovered that the former owners of the strip club were being charged with serious federal felonies involving sexual slavery. I had been cautioned by local law enforcement for a long time that there were real problems with that strip club, but didn't know the details until the federal charges started.
I had little choice but to break the story prior to the election. If I'd held the story, I would have been accused — correctly so — by local Democrats of holding the story to help the Republican get elected.
On top of all that, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch broke a major story on the federal charges against the former owners of the strip club. I'd already made my decision to run the story, but if I hadn't done so, the Post-Dispatch story would have made me look like I was trying to cover things up.
End result is the Republican won his race, the Democratic candidate was suspected of leaking me the story (he didn't, but I'm guessing his friends may have had something to do with it), and the county calmed down after a few weeks of some Republicans screaming that I'd gotten in bed with the Democrats.
The Republican prosecutor has known me for years, knows I'm no Democrat, and most people have forgotten. He wasn't happy (nobody would be), but as far as he's concerned, he won the election and now has even more reason not to let the campaign contribution affect his decisions on who to charge with crimes.
On the other hand, if I hadn't run the story, it would not have been forgotten and I would to this day be accused of covering up for Republicans accused of corrupt criminal ties.
World Magazine was essentially in the same position. They had to run this story before the election, and really had no alternative to doing so.
Frankly, the stakes were a lot higher for World Magazine than for me. I can get away with accusations that I'm biased toward Republicans (I don't hide my conservative positions, and in my community I can get away with that).
World Magazine's credibility would be destroyed, and correctly so, if it became known they had information indicating that a prominent Christian college president who was fighting against Barack Obama was in an problematic relationship, but World had covered it up right before the 2012 election.
Many of us in conservative circles would have demanded the heads of Joel Belz (founder) and Marvin Olasky (editor) — just like many of us are now upset that King's College apparently knew about D’Souza’s major marriage problems and let him remain in a position as head of a Christian college.
This was likely a disaster waiting to happen. It should have been handled quietly, but that would have required D’Souza quietly stepping out of public Christian leadership positions long ago as his marriage started to fall apart.
62 posted on Fri Oct 19 2012 12:20:44 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time) by rmlew: “D’Souza slept in the same room as his fiance. Does it prove infidelity? No. But appearances matter and he was broadcasting adultery.”
Sadly, ican’tbelieveit and rmlew are absolutely right. And yes, Gaijin is also right about Alinsky's methods of forcing his opponents to play by their rules while not following them himself.
Liberals who don't believe in morality can get away with things like this. We can't.
And we shouldn't try.
Let's try to put the best possible face on this. Let's say Dinesh D’Souza is in a horrible marriage and has biblical grounds for divorce, and on top of that, his wife is insisting on the separation.
Okay, so why isn't he doing everything he can to avoid appearances of impropriety? He was a Christian college president. He was in a position of very public leadership in the political campaign attacking the president of the United States.
Whether D’Souza fell into the sin of adultery or not, I don't know.
But he sure opened the door to temptation.
Satan looks for opportunities and it sure looks like he found the weak chink in D’Souza’s armor.
No, this was a planned attack, intended to destroy Dinesh D’Souza, plain and simple. My guess is that someone had some equally damaging dirt on whoever is spreading this gossip.
Is World Magazine usually involved in prurient gossip?
I don't doubt that President Obama would have wanted the opportunity to try to destroy D’Souza. It wouldn't surprise me in the least bit, considering Obama’s history of digging up marital dirt on opponents in races in Illinois, if his campaign knew about lots of stuff involving D’Souza.
If the underlying question is whether World Magazine specializes in sex scandals, the answer is no. I could see how agents for Obama's campaign might dig up dirt and feed it to a Christian publication known for sex scandals, but that is not what World Magazine is known for doing.
Their focus at World tends to be more issues related to abortion, the "culture war," and welfare reform. Their editor, Marvin Olasky, was an informal adviser to President George W. Bush back when they were both in Texas and he has a lot of interest in emphasizing a Christian work ethic and stopping government-sponsored damage to the family. His wife has been involved in the pro-life movement for many years.
Frankly, I've covered a lot more sex scandals in a quarter-century career as a reporter than World Magazine has ever done in its entire history with all their staff put together. (Of course, as a Christian magazine, their focus isn't on the crime beat or the foibles of politicians. Mine is. One would hope that covering the church world would involve covering people with higher moral standards than politicians or the court system, so they'd have fewer opportunities for such stories...)
However, I think D’Souza’s actions of escorting this woman around while being a Christian college president and attending a Christian apologetics conference were incredibly foolish at best. As D’Souza himself says here, as reported by the Christian Post, not by World Magazine:
Denying any wrongdoing, D’Souza stated, “I sought out advice about whether it is legal to be engaged prior to being divorced and I was informed that it is. Denise and I were trying to do the right thing. I had no idea that it is considered wrong in Christian circles to be engaged prior to being divorced, even though in a state of separation and in divorce proceedings.
“Obviously I would not have introduced Denise as my fiancé at a Christian apologetics conference if I had thought or known I was doing something wrong. But as a result of all this, and to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, Denise and I have decided to suspend our engagement.”
D’Souza is denying some of the accusations against him, but not this one. This one is pretty bad, and in and of itself, should cause serious questions for the president of a Christian college.
My bottom line question is this — with so much riding on this election, and literally tens of millions of dollars of financial incentives to boot, why couldn't D’Souza have kept his relationship with this woman, who he apparently just met a few months ago, on hold until ***AFTER THE ELECTION!!!***
One might think that D’Souza would be too busy in the campaign to have time for any romantic relationship, let alone one like this that could destroy everything he's worked for professionally, personally, and politically.
But sometimes people just don't think. Sin is real, and Satan is always looking for an opportunity to attack.
Sure looks like he found one this time.
Oh, for Pete’s sake, who died and made you the arbiter of sin and who is and is not a sinner. Let he, who is without sin, cast the first stone. Is that you?
“Frankly dear, I don’t give a damn.”
At that point you have to care because if the accusations are true, D’Souza must be removed from his positions of Christian service.
If not, I agree that it’s your choice whether or not to care about the issue.
The passage to which you allude is not the only one in Scripture about sexual misconduct. Scripture has high standards for Christian leadership.
If the clergy sex scandals of the last few years have taught us anything, it is that the Christian leaders to whom we entrust our young people — and that includes college students — must be above reproach. I realize D’Souza is not ordained, but it’s obvious he comes in regular contact with young college students and sets a tone for the standards of the college.
He’s resigned from King’s College. We’ll see what happens next.
I can’t see this one ending well.
Mr. D’Souza is a fallen-away Catholic. It's reasonable to think that he's not entirely familiar with evangelical Protestant culture.
As a Catholic, it didn't occur to me that it would be objectionable to Protestants for someone to become engaged after two years of separation, but before divorce. If you're okay with divorce, it seems like a quibble to me.
For us Catholics, short of obtaining a declaration of nullity (not as easy as some folks think, although perhaps easier than it should be), divorce and remarriage mean a choice between a new “marriage” and the Church. So, whether you get engaged before, during, or after the divorce, it's all catastrophic, if one has been a devout Catholic.
To me, it looks like his enemies have decided to bring him down, justly or not.
King’s College isn’t a Catholic college. It’s a Protestant Christian college.
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