Is hypocrisy a crime?

[elfs]

There has been a lot of press recently about poor Senator Larry Craig and Representative Bob Allen, two Republicans who were recently arrested for tea-rooming^{[? - see alternative meanings]}, seeking to have sex in a public place. (Cool, the Wikipedia entry mentions Laud Humphrey's study-- I remember reading that twenty years ago-- in which he documented that half the participants in the practice were outwardly heterosexual, married men.)

The most damning charge against Craig is that he has engaged in a lifelong pursuit of hypocrisy. If hypocrisy is the worst the right can accuse Craig of having, it should read Dale Carpenter's essay, The Elephant in the Room, in which he writes:

The big, open secret in Republican politics is that everyone knows someone gay these days and very few people -- excepting some committed anti-gay activists -- really care. It's one of the things that drives religious conservatives crazy because it makes the party look like it's not really committed to traditional sexual morality.

It [the Republican Party] has steadfastly resisted efforts to ease anti-gay discrimination in public policy, even when Republican politicians know better. I can't tell you how many Republican staffers told me, for example, that their bosses privately opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment but would be voting for it anyway.

[But], to keep the talent it needs and simply to be as humane and decent as politically possible toward particular individuals, the party has come up with its own unwritten common-law code: you can be gay and work here, we don't care, but don't talk about it openly and don't do anything to make it known publicly in the sense that either the media or the party's religious base might learn of it. It's the GOP's own internal version of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." ...

This [periodic spasms of scandals] doesn't happen to the Democrats because the party's public and private attitudes toward homosexuality are fully consistent: acceptance of gays.

Another place in the essay Carpenter says this behavior is not hypocrisy, but is "better described as a form of ideological schizophrenia: private acceptance welded to public rejection."

I think that's exactly right. Even more to the point, like everyone else, I have an opinion about hypocrisy.

I'm for it.

Hypocrisy: "claim, pretense, or false representation of holding beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not actually possess." (Wiktionary)

The problem with calling Craig a hypocrite is that we really cannot prove, and should not strive to prove, that he is anything more than what he tells us: we should take him at face value. When he says he believes in "public morality" and his right-wing vision of the family and all that, we should believe him. It is our duty as human beings to believe him. Until this incident, we had no reason to believe otherwise, and given that the bulk of the evidence (a lifetime of right-wing adherence) tilts in a certain direction, we should continue to believe that he is what he says he is: a right-wing idealogue who does not believe in the acceptability of public policy that recognizes an inherent and equal respect toward gays and lesbians.

Senator Larry Craig violated his own moral code. This does not mean he is insincere in espousing it. Keeping to a strict code of conduct, however arbitrary, is hard; Craig happens to hew to one that is viciously at odds with his own nature and we should forgive him for his moments when his spirit is willing but flesh is weak.

Such a struggle between his base impulses and what he sincerely believes are the requirements of his own moral system is deeply human. For all of us, how we face this struggle-- and importantly, its consequences and outcomes-- is how we judge ourselves. For people like Craig, it also brings into question his Ultimate Judgement™.

I think he's crazy, but that's because he does not live within my context: his is informed by the scribblings of semi-literate goatherders and fisherment dead for at least the past two millennia, whereas mine comes from the Enlightenment. But I think I understand what went on in Larry Craig's mind, and I don't believe his hypocrisy deserves the heated outrage we've seen.

Comments

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

And where do these boy whores ply their trade? Inquiring Nevadans want to know!

Last time I checked, all the Nevada brothels were het and exclusively employed female practitioners of that art.

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm ...

Boys' Town? Oh, wait, that's Chicago ...

Sausagefest?

Meat Rack?

The He-man Woman-haters Club?

There must be a play on "fraternity" one could use ...