I really have no desire to turn this blog into a compendium of sexual perversions of conservatives, particularly those of the Christian bent. Yes, it's kind of fun pointing out the hypocrisy of the ones tubthumping the loudest about the decline of American "decency", and pointing the fingers at gay men, feminists, lesbians, and basically everyone who isn't a fundamentalist Christian, but frankly, I don't get my jollies thinking about, or doing research into how other people have sex.
However, because the Christian right sex police are so ascendant in the governing of this country, I think it's important not just to point out hypocrisy where it lives; that "do as I say, not as I do" mentality; but also to recognize that people who are uncomfortable with their own impulses are trying to control yours. Most of us on the progressive side of the political spectrum, whether gay or straight, don't have sex with animals, we don't go prowling for children on the Web, we don't molest our underlings at work, and we don't force people into doing anything they don't want to do. And let's face it: It sure does seem that the people with the seamiest sex lives are the ones on the right. This is not to say that sexual oddities are the exclusive province of the right, but given the wide range of sexual behavior of which humans are capable, it does seem that when we hear of something that even WE think is skeevey, it's usually a right-winger with egg on his face.
I've long believed that the vocal sex police of the right are so afraid of themselves, and so needy of the kind of small, tight box (no pun intended, or maybe it is) into which fundamentalist Christianity places them, that they can't imagine anyone else being able to control his/her own behavior. But it's more than that: If I can control and respect myself, and you can control and respect yourself, and we can do it without Jesus, it calls into question their own need for external controls.
I once had a fundamentalist Christian tell me that it's easy for non-Christian married people to avoid having affairs because Satan doesn't tempt them, whereas Christian marrieds are specifically targeted by Satan. Under this model, Satan is embroiled in some kind of Amazing Race-type reality show with God, in which extra points are given for tempting Christians. What's interesting about this particular viewpoint is that free will never enters into the equation. It never occurs to these people to say, "Sorry, Satan...I love my spouse, and even though we occasionally have problems, a few minutes, days, or weeks of thrill just aren't worth it." Instead they succumb, destroy their families, then blame Satan and then go to confession if they are Catholic, or if they aren't they don't even have to do that. Just do whatever you want, and Jesus will forgive you. Not a bad gig, if you can wrap yourself up in the kind of logical knots required to believe it.
Frankly, I think this kind of "clean slate" model must scare the hell out of them. After all, if Jesus will forgive you for anything, why not test your limits? That's what children do, isn't it? Isn't it just possible that it's exactly this kind of "faith, not deeds" mentality that requires externally-imposed limits, whereas those of us who think deeds are important are better able to rely on our own self-discipline?
I posted a link yesterday to this post at The Green Knight, but I think it's so spot-on in explaining why these people think there's nothing odd in living a seamy life yourself but demanding sexual purity from others, it's worth noting again:
Horsley's admissions regarding Elsie the Mule are actually part of a larger redemption narrative; what a wretch was I until I was saved. Furthermore, Horsley implies that a person who is not as he now is, a fundamentalist Christian, is really just a hedonistic animal, as he, by his own account, once was. Either you believe in absolutes -- his absolutes -- or you believe in nothing. Not only do you believe in nothing, but you aren't even in a sense fully human. You copulate with animals. That seems to be how he interprets his own history, and how he interprets the way that people in general face the problems of life.
This narrative of depravity and rebirth is so common on the right that it's almost a badge of honor. Think of George W. Bush's alcoholic past, or of Gannon/Guckert's prostitution. What many on the left see as hypocrisy, many on the right see as redemption stories. I was depraved; then I was saved. Just put your misdeeds into that narrative, and boom, all is forgiven.
Now, spiritual rebirths do happen. But the way that Horsley thinks of his own is part of that larger rebirth narrative that's prevalent on the right. Furthermore, underlying that narrative is a stark idea, and one that is key to understanding the modern right. The idea is that there are really only two alternatives: Absolute Truth or Absolute Chaos. When people on the far right look at other people, they see lost souls, descending into moral iniquity and dragging the world down with them. The fact that other people might believe strongly, morally, and sincerely in different things is not part of the narrative. The idea that someone might even have a moral or spiritual perspective that is true but different is not even considered possible.
[snip]
You see, the reason that they want to impose their set of narrow values on us is that they really do think that the nation is lost without them. Only their values, they believe, can save us from our own depravity. Without their set of values, they fear, we'll all be lovin' mules. But with them, we, like they, may yet be redeemed. All our misdeeds can be washed away if we just do what they do and think as they think. Otherwise, they believe, hellbound we go at top speed.
Just think of the kind of thing that Bill O'Reilly and others have been saying about equal marriage. Today, gay people; tomorrow, we'll be marrying goats. The modern right believes that if something is allowed, then everything is allowed, and that if everything is allowed to happen, then everything will happen. Change one thing, and society will fall apart like a house of cards.
It's the simplistic notion of "That which is not mandatory is forbidden", and "That which is not forbidden is mandatory." This is why these folks can't conceive (oy, I did it again, didn't I) of the notion of "If you don't like abortion, don't have one." If abortion is allowed, it's somehow required.
But whether it's because bloggers and journalists on the left have had enough of being lectured to, or because the holier-than-thou climate that's pervading American sociopolitical life these days, or simply that it makes good copy, the ugly sex habits of conservatives are just coming out of the woodwork these days.
Now Spokane Mayor Jim West, who's now casting himself as the hapless victim of gay harassers being mean to a guy simply trying to come to terms with himself (except most gays trying to come out of the closet AREN'T, contrary to what West might like to believe, molesting young boys and offering internships in exchange for sex). And there's even more ugliness coming out from underneath the rocks of right-wing piety. It now seems that John Bolton, the raving lunatic with anger management issues that is C-Plus Caligula's choice to represent us at the U.N., may have been abusive to his first wife. And David Hager, one of the most odious men ever to walk the face of the earth, a phyisician who favors prayer as treatment for menstrual problems who is C-Plus Caligula's choice to head the FDA, is using the "Christians are being persecuted" chestnut while covering up his own dirty linen:
According to Davis, Hager's public moralizing on sexual matters clashed with his deplorable treatment of her during their marriage. Davis alleges that between 1995 and their divorce in 2002, Hager repeatedly sodomized her without her consent. Several sources on and off the record confirmed that she had told them it was the sexual and emotional abuse within their marriage that eventually forced her out. "I probably wouldn't have objected so much, or felt it was so abusive if he had just wanted normal [vaginal] sex all the time," she explained to me. "But it was the painful, invasive, totally nonconsensual nature of the [anal] sex that was so horrible."
Not once during the uproar over Hager's FDA appointment did any reporter solicit the opinion of the woman now known as Linda Davis--she remarried in November 2002 to James Davis, a Methodist minister, and relocated to southern Georgia--on her husband's record, even though she contributed to much of his self-help work in the Christian arena (she remains a religious and political conservative). She intermittently thought of telling her story but refrained, she says, out of respect for her adult children. It was Hager's sermon at Asbury last October that finally changed her mind. Davis was there to hear her middle son give a vocal performance; she was prepared to hear her ex-husband inveigh against secular liberals, but she was shocked to hear him speak about their divorce when he took to the pulpit.
These are the people who are the public face of the Republican party. They are physical and sexual abusers of animals and people, they are adulterers and closet cases, and they they want to control your life, because they can't control their own.
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