Remission of Their Hypocrisies

A couple of weeks ago, Joe Conason was musing on conservative sexual hypocrisy (specifically, as you might guess, with respect to the Mark Sanford and John Ensign Show) at Salon,

For ideologues who value biblical morality and believe in the efficacy of punishment, modern conservatives are as tolerant of their famous sinners as the jaded libertines of the left. Even after confessing to the most flagrant and colorful fornication, the worst that a conservative must anticipate is a stern scolding, followed by warm assurances of God's forgiveness and a swift return to business as usual

....and...

By the way, while Vitter, Ensign, Gingrich and perhaps Sanford have been able to retain their positions and political viability, the same cannot be said for the most recent offenders on the progressive side. Neither Eliot Spitzer nor John Edwards, each among the most promising figures in the Democratic Party, will ever be a candidate for public office again, although their misbehavior was no worse than what their Republican counterparts did.

This phenomenon has baffled me for years... at least since the Clinton scandal: how can the right- or more accurately, the social conservatives- expect to be taken seriously when their own behaviors are so demonstrably out of line with the behaviors they demand of others? But other discussions have finally clarified this issue for me.

First, Krugman responds to Conason's column:

Yes, conservatives sin just as much as liberals. But they aren’t “socially permissive and casually tolerant” — at least not in the same way that liberals are. First of all, there’s a difference in what bothers them. When a liberal politician engages in sexual betrayal, what bothers his erstwhile supporters is the betrayal. When a conservative politician does it, what bothers the supporters is the sex.

(...)

From their point of view the cause, the need to police what people do in bed, is, by definition, right, because it’s literally God-given. So the fact that some of those trying to police what other people do in bed are themselves doing nasty things does not reflect on the cause itself — on the contrary, it shows just how necessary more bed-snooping is.

Now, honestly, I read this intially as snark, not as a serious analysis of the conservative mindset. But I've been mulling it over, and it seems more and more plausible. It's been clear since at least the mid-eighties that conservative howling over abortion and pre-marital sex has little to do with the actual behaviors, and everything to do with repugnance toward the idea of sex itself, shame that they recognize- and are compelled to respond to- the sex drive within themselves, and with maintaining traditional gender roles. So Krugman's argument is esentially that (at least some) redemption from perceived sin is to recognize that everyone, including one's self, is likely to stray from a "righteous" lifestyle, engaging in a persistant campaign of "bed-snooping" to catch offenders, and outing them in the public square; the resulting shame is redemptive to both the catcher and the caught.

Today, The Christian Science Monitor provides a brilliant piece of commentary on the topic of how conservatives view the failures of their leaders to adhere to the lifestyles they demand others follow.

When a Republican affair is exposed, the left seems to assume that the religious right, with the exacting moral standards it tends to laud, will have one less general leading its "pro family" brigade. But practice shows us otherwise. While for Democrats, adultery often leads to ruined or constrained careers – think Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, John Edwards – Republican adulterers from Newt Gingrich to David Vitter have lived to see another political day, still championing their hard-line conservative positions.

(...)

What we are witnessing is the culmination of "the personal is political," a philosophy pioneered by the left and perfected by the right. The stumbling block for liberals is their unfamiliarity with the "personal" of the Christian right. Where the left sees hypocrisy, the evangelical right sees a millenniums-old story of fallen humanity and healing redemption. With a politically active religious right, that story matters not just in terms of theology but of practical politics.

In other words, the religious right recognizes the importance of forgiveness of perceived infractions. But it does beg the question, "Then why does an affair destroy the careers of politicians such as 'Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, John Edwards?'" Here's my conjecture: from the perspective of the religious right, if you're a liberal, you are by definition worshipping the wrong god (lowercase intentional). Likewise anyone else who is not clearly a Christian Social Conservative (CSC), as evidenced by vociferously spouting all of the soundbites, taglines and coded signals that we have all come to know so well.

We on the left are exasperated and disappointed when Clinton or Edwards lets us down; the right is enraged. Since Clinton and Edwards (and their supporters) worship the wrong god, no amount of apology and contrition can earn them true forgiveness. It is the right responsibility of the righteous to punish them, and never allow them to forget their shame. Meanwhile, active support for the offenders isn't lost, but it's diminished; it goes from strong to tepid. Realistically, as a candidate, such a person has no chance of winning an election.

On the other hand, when a person such as Vitter or Sanford, who have clearly shown themselves to worship the Right God (uppercases intentional), stray from a Righteous lifestyle, are caught, then publicly accept their shame in the eyes of both Right God and the public, they are, almost by definition, deemed to have been forgiven in the eyes of Right God. Therefore, since all is forgiven, there's no need to pay attention to the Sin any more. The sinner is merely human, Right God recognizes this, and the public has no right to question the sinner's behavior as relevant to their future career- political or not. In fact, since the sinner has so clearly been forgiven in the eyes of Right God, they're even more Righteous than they were before the infraction; the redemption actually makes them more appealing to CSC's. As a candidate, the person has probably not lost the support of anyone who supported him previously, and he (or she) may have actually strengthened their support amongst CSC's. Such a person has no reason to step down or choose not to run for further terms.

I will point out that everything from "Here's my conjecture" down is just that: my conjecture. But I've been desperate to make sense out of the modern conservative mindset; it has looked like severe crazy to me, and has been, frankly, terrifying. The above really isn't that much less crazy and terrifiying, but it does make an odd kind of sense. It's not a double standard, it's not hypocritical, it's simply a matter of whether the sinner in question has been forgiven by the Right God.

I really, really recommend that you take the time to read the Monitor's piece- the authors are not necessarily trying to defend the CSC point of view, but rather to explain it. I think they do so exceptionally well.