The Party Of Godliness (?)

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,

go ahead and cheat a friend;

Do it in the name of Heaven,

justify it in the end.

There won't be any trumpets blowin'

come the Judgment Day;

on the bloody mornin' after...

one tin soldier rides away.

– One Tin Soldier, by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter; orginal recording by The Original Caste

Sometimes I'm slow to pick up on emerging political developments. So forgive me if you've already heard that Republican U.S. Senator John Ensign was recently found to have had an affair with the wife of one of his staffers, or that in order to cover up this affair, the Senator found a high-paying position in a lobbying firm for that staffer, or that in 2008, Senator Ensign's parents paid the staffer's wife $96,000 as “hush money.”

This is interesting because of the fact that in 2008, as in several previous elections, the American “Christian” right exhorted evangelicals to support the Republican party because the Republicans were the “party of godliness,” and were thus America's last best hope for preservation as a “Christian” nation. Of course, their definition of “Christian” was somewhat narrow, consisting only of the following:

• Respect for the American flag and the Constitution

• Supporting our troops!

• Opposing homosexuality and abortion

• Upholding traditional marriage

• and supporting unhindered capitalism

(Why did I put the word Christian in quotation marks in the paragraph above? Because it's my way of saying, “You may call this 'Christian', but you overlooked a few things!” Or as a movie character once said, “Finding a mouse in a cookie jar doesn't make it a cookie.”)

2009 seems to be the year for imploding Republicans, as 2006 was. Not only do we have Senator Ensign's immoral and illegal acts, but we have South Carolina's Republican Governor Mark Sanford, who was caught in an adulterous affair and who used taxpayer money to try to cover it up. Then there's California Assemblyman Mark Duvall from Orange County who was also caught “kissing the wrong woman.” I could go on and name former Congressman Chip Pickering, or Charles Jensen, Paradise Valley Mayor Vernon Parker and Arizona conservative talk show host Mike Broomhead. Jenson, Parker and Broomhead were leaders of an Arizona Republican political organization. There are other names, of course. If you are reading this and you think your name should be here, please forgive me if I failed to mention you.

Funny thing is, all the so-called “Christian Coalition” and “family values” groups that condemned people like former President Clinton and former attorney general Eliot Spitzer have been quite silent about recent Republican meltdowns. These people have been extremely quick to condemn the moral degeneracy of the Democrats. Why are they silent now? (Hey, James Dobson and Tony Perkins, I can't hear you!!!) Is it because the threat of moral degeneracy is no longer important to them? And why have so many Republican politicians refused to resign from office after being outed?

Could it be that their real agenda has nothing to do with Christian morality? Could it be that their professed “godliness” is simply a ploy to get votes from gullible people? What do they actually support, beside economic, political and military domination of the world, and the securing of an extremely lavish lifestyle for a small minority of the world at the expense of the rest of the world? Don't get me wrong – homosexuality and abortion are in fact sin. But so are greed and murder and the violation of the poor.

Yeah, yeah, I know – you've heard me say this time and time again. But I just found out about Senator Ensign. Thinking about how hard the Republicans have fought to tear apart all of our social safety nets, I just had to get this off my chest. Thanks for reading.

If you want to read more, check out these links:

Republican sex scandal meets spirituality on C Street, regarding the so-called “Christian” shared housing inhabited by mostly Republican lawmakers, and the code of silence which prevents their talking about housemates who commit high crimes and misdemeanors;

And Another GOP Sex Scandal, whose title is self-explanatory,

And lastly, Audra Shay Wins Young Republican Race Despite Facebook Racism Controversy, which shows something of the Right's real agenda.