You knew, you just knew, that there was some monkey business going on with South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and his mysterious Father's Day weekend disappearance, which turned out not to be a hiking trip on the Appalachian Trail, but a jaunt to Argentina -- in connection with an extramarital affair, which he said today that he had ended. Un-freaking-believable. Video of press conference here. It's bad enough that the Republican cheated on his wife, and betrayed his three young sons, but to go AWOL and incommunicado for several days while attending to your own messy personal life -- this while you are the chief executive officer of a state! -- is politically unforgivable. This old boy, once considered a future presidential contender, is done for.
Fine with me, but I don't understand Andrew Sullivan's logic in claiming that an adulterous Republican who opposes same-sex marriage should therefore flip-flop on the issue after admitting his adultery.
UPDATE: Jonathan Tobin at Commentary's blog is right on target when he says of the presser: "I'll say one thing about this sorry spectacle; at least we were spared the sight of his wife standing by his side as he humiliates her, in the manner of Elliot Spitzer and his aggrieved spouse."
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"It would be nice for a change if you could interact without all the emotionalism and name calling"
. . .
"These kinds of questions are really old. Please remedy your ignorance of Christianity by reading the New Testament, specifically the book of Acts and Paul's epistles. Seriously, have you actually ever read the Bible?"
It is possible to affirm a certain standard as morally right, even as one fails to live up to that standard.
Sure. It's quite another thing, however, to put your own moral failings into the category of "life happens" and others' "moral failings" into the category of things that will destroy civilization, especially when yours do demonstrable harm to the people closest to you.
And enough with the insistence that adultery, divorce, etc. only apply to "individual advocates" of traditional values.
Heck, among GOP Congresscritters, the percentage of immoral hypocrites is way higher than the percentage of gay people in the population.
question: "You are the one who is unable or unwilling to consider any other possible sources of ethics. If you cannot behave in an ethical manner if you happen to be convinced at some point in the future that the Bible fails in some manner, you have told us that you are a sociopath, limited only by your fear of God. That is what you told us. Please, keep believing."
No freelunch, I have in fact considered other sources of ethics.
From the interactions I have had with you, I daresay I've spent quite a bit more time examining and questioning the presuppositions of my belief system than have you. In fact, I spent years reading secular and atheistic philosophers such as Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Sartre and Camus. I even read Sartre and Camus in French. Have you done anything remotely similar with YOUR belief system?
I have, however, concluded that all non-religious sources of ethics are without an adequate foundation and hence should not be taken seriously. And you are entirely missing the point when you say I am limited by the fear of God. The question is, if God does not exist, does good and evil even exist in the first place? In the end, the issue is the existence of God and his nature, not actions motivated by fear.
I may not have any more time for this discussion today. It may be pointless anyway considering how close minded you seem to be. Oh, and Maeb, if you really were serious when you asked your previous question then my labeling of you as ignorance wasn't calling a name, it was merely accurately describing the depth of your knowledge of Christianity. Really, the reasons why Christians don't follow all of the laws in Leviticus such as the prohibition on eating pork and shellfish is Christianity 101 material.
rr
"How about compassion. How about learning not to throw stones at homosexuals from his glass house." Z
TR: I think I had listed this as a possibility, but are we clear he didn't have that before? He was against even same-sex civil unions, but did he say anything indicating homosexuals are bad people or that he's better than them?
I agree many on the Christian Right need to be more compassionate to homosexuals, particularly when they commit their own sexual sins. However that still basically implies both are sins. Or at least doesn't preclude that view.
All of this almost makes me wish we had room in our political system for someone like Italian P.M. Silvio Berlusconi. He likes screwing around, he's open about the fact that he cheats on his wife, he doesn't intend to stop, and he's unapologetic about it. While I don't condone his behavior (and evidently neither does his wife, since his wife, since she is divorcing him), I admit I find his candor refreshing.
Or something like the arrangement the French have traditionally had. Everyone knew Mitterrand had a mistress, no one got bent out of shape over it, and his family even invited her to his funeral. Again, I don't condone his behavior, but I sometimes I think that's better than the whole tearful media circus of staged repentance that we have to go through on a regular basis.
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