One of the leading organizations advocating for sexual openness and freedom is charging the Republican National Committee with hypocrisy in the wake of revelations that a RNC staffer spent nearly $2,000 on a night at a bondage-themed nightclub.
Jeffrey Montgomery, a founding member and spokesperson for the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, who has lobbied extensively to promote the idea that sexual freedom is a human right, charged the RNC and its chairman, Michael Steele with duplicity for posturing as moral purists at the same time that they were indulging their esoteric, voyeuristic impulses.
"I think, from our standpoint, the issue isn't that he was at this club and spent all that money. If one can afford that, it is not such a big deal. It sounds like a fun club. The problem, of course, is that the RNC is hypocritical," Montgomery said. "I really doubt we would be talking about this issue if he got reimbursed for a weekend poker tournament or a Final Four basketball game... but because he happened to go to a sex club or whatever the definition is, once again the RNC finds itself in this hypocritical position of having one of their own leaders involved in a thing they would otherwise be worked up about. That's the problem here."
"There should be no big deal over this or over the fact that he did this and where he was. He may as well have just been at an art auction or antique show," Montgomery added. "The RNC should just stop moralizing about people's individual sexual lives as long as what they are doing is legal. They should deal with the problem that they have out-of-control spending numbers, not what they are spending the money on."
Montgomery also expressed a tinge of jealousy on Monday that he had not been included in the lavish nightclub jaunt paid for by the RNC this past February.
"I wouldn't mind being this guy's guest one night," Montgomery said, referring to the California GOP operative who footed the bill for an event to recruit young Republicans at the posh club Voyeur.
The RNC, on Monday evening, sought to move on from this most recent round of controversy surrounding its finances by firing a staffer that the committee said was responsible for green-lighting the Voyeur expenditure. Still, as with early missteps, the committee is taking its share of lumps.
While sexual freedom advocates aren't happy with Steele or the RNC, conservative women's rights activists are livid as well. Penny Nance, the CEO of Concerned Women for America, which boasts half a million members nationwide, released the following statement about the Voyeur expense on Monday.
Please explain to Republican and Democratic women if and why you think it is appropriate to promote pornographic enterprises? As women we find the very idea of officials from either party approving of endeavors that objectify and demean women outrageous. This kind of behavior is not appropriate for national leaders that our children should be able to look up to as role models, and that our daughters could be working for.
"Did you really swill drinks, ogle young girls and plan party business at this kind of establishment? Please explain!