Sanford's Affair Sparks Debate In GOP Over Family Values Emphasis

[evildevil]

Sanford's Affair Sparks Debate In GOP Over Family Values Emphasis

Gov. Mark Sanford's admission to an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina has sparked a debate within the backchannels of the GOP over how strongly the party should emphasize morality and religion going forward.

For decades, the GOP has used issues like respect for the sanctity

Comments

[bantiarna]

So yea, instead of trying to live up to our own standards, lets just change the subject. Lets just dump trying to be good people.

[box_in_the_box]

As a liberal, I actually agree with this.

Too bad for your side that the evangelicals would literally rather bring about the end of the world than ever let this happen, and since they've become your party's "base" ...

[psylum_atla]

If you want to use A 2000 year old book to set your moral standards, try applying the entire book and not just the parts that push your own agenda.

That's gonna mean, say, no working on the Sabbath. That means no police, fireman, or paramedics. No emergency services of any kind for one whole day every week.

Then there's all the things in that pesky New testament that value voters seem to forget. Like those with the most owing the most to others, and preying in private.

If your going to ride into town on a white bible demanding it be applied to the government and government officials, applying all of it.

[hinoema]

Dear GOP; If you can't practice what you preach, don't preach.

There, that wasn't so hard, was it?

All levity aside, their obsessive focus on who does what according to what religious text or moral yardstick is great if they're running for Pope. However, if they want to be taken seriously as a political party, they need more than Fudgets and six page health care manifestos that are long on rhetoric and short on facts.

"The problem with the Republican Party today is not having principles..."

Having principles can be such a problem!

"The Republican Party has a lot of problems, no doubt, but for every John Ensign or Mark Sanford are ten so-called conservatives undermining the Jeffersonian message of individual rights, individual dignity."

Jeffferson the famous Democratic-Republican? ;)

[gmth]

The failings of Sanford and others, they argue, were isolated and personal events and not reflective of the party as a whole.

Oh, but the failings of Clinton, Spitzer, et al are TOTALLY reflective of the Democratic party as a whole.

Cut me a break.

[filbypott]

Why are they in such a BATTLE with the Democrats over morality?

Simple: Because pretending to be more moral than the other party picks them up more votes in the Bible Belt. It's purely cynical.

[hinoema]

Honestly? Because self-proclaimed moral superiority is intangible and largely arbitrary. Any fool- or group of fools- can don the mantle of righteousness and not only can it not be objectively questioned, it's an offense to do so (unless the self-appointed Righteous One in question is doing the questioning).

Morality, in the hands of any politico of this sort, is merely a way to preemptively (if often unjustifiably) assert a false advantage in any disagreement. Not "I'm right because I'm right (and here's the facts)" but "I'm right because I'm righteous (and you'd better believe it or you're a bad person)".

[missmurchison]

I am utterly sick of hearing "morality" used to refer exclusively to sexual behavior. There's a hell of a lot more to do with being a moral person than what you do with your dick or your twat.

[brinylon]

Gods, yes, this