What to Expect From Family Values Groups on Republican Affairs
By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
Focus on the Family's vice president of communications E-mails to protest my post about the silence of family values groups on Mark Sanford's affair. Focus, he says, has hardly kept quiet, responding to interview requests from Politico, the Washington Times, and a small New England newspaper.
Given what Focus's powerful media ministry is capable of—through a press release, an E-mail to supporters, or its daily flagship radio show with James Dobson—I'd say these interviews move Focus's response from the silent to low-profile column. But Focus's reaction raises a larger question about what should be expected from family values groups in response to the affairs of elected officials.
It's important to note that the same conservative Christian groups that have laid low on the Sanford affair were also pretty quiet about recent revelations of Democratic affairs, from Eliot Spitzer to John Edwards. In those cases, it was the news media that played the role of moralizer, not family values groups. Fact is, those groups are focused on public policy, not on the private behavior of elected officials, regardless of their party ID.
So is it fair to expect family values organizations to pipe up when a Republican ally takes a serious moral fall? Or should such groups more loudly denounce Republican allies who claim to promote a family values agenda, while Democratic politicians like Spitzer and Edwards rarely made such claims?
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Tags: Republicans | religion
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Reader Comments
SANFORD AND SONS
SANFORD AND SON.
By: Jordan C. Fan, Prophet of Environment.
Warning: Leave Mark Sanford alone!
SANFORD NEEDS SONS.
LIKE THE TV SERIES, "SANFORD AND SON"
Like the TV Series, "Sanford and Son." Who can really blame him for wanting to have more sons to carry on his family name and tradition by increasing his offsprings. Therefore he needs to have sex with more women The important thing is not to wear condoms when he was having sex.
More than likely it was also a conspiracy staged by Brack Obama and his Democrats supporters especially Black to set him up using beautiful women similar to what they have done for other White politcal figures such as the former NY governor(s). Their purpose is to replace them with Blacks.
Who would not doubt that Obama has never committed adultery?
Quite Obviously this is a Prophecy from God. Sanford should be allowed to enjoy his life as usual without anymore interference. In fact, Americans should help his cause by providing him with women so that Sanford coan have more sons.
Republicans, Mark Sanford and sons should thank me for this comment.
For their own sakes
it is better for "values" groups to not chime in on high-profile people who make publicized mistakes in marriage or sex.
For OUR sakes,
it would be better for "values" groups to never, ever, ever try to mislead us with the idea that "conservatives" are somehow a better class of men in this regard. There are plenty of pastors who have run off with other women, and there are plenty of Sanfords and Swaggarts and Haggards, etc.
The "we're more moral" boast has never been legitimate property of the political "right".
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