After Sanford, Let's End Hypocrisy and Promote Equality

So Governor Sanford is another family values hypocrite. How many times did he deny privacy rights and marriage equality to others?

According to OnTheIssues.org, as a Member of Congress, Mark Sanford voted repeatedly against abortion rights; against gay marriage, civil unions, and gay adoptions; and for posting the Ten Commandments. As Governor, he continued those positions.

Moreover, a draft Sanford for president website spells this out:

Mark Sanford is also much more than a fiscal conservative. He supports banning partial-birth abortions and also voted for a bill that would make it a federal crime to transport a minor across state lines for the purpose of getting an abortion. Mark Sanford is against gay marriage and defines marriage as one man and one woman. He is also against letting gay couple adopt children.

Of course we feel sympathy for his family -- clearly his wife and kids are the innocents in this sad saga. And we also feel sympathy for the tens of thousands of families affected by Sanford's anti-privacy, anti-choice, anti-gay policies.

This is a teachable moment: no LGBT couple, no gay marriage threatened Mark Sanford's marriage, even though he threatened theirs. How many more Sanfords until the GOP decides to drop the hopelessly hypocritical opposition to privacy rights and marriage equality?

Enough is enough. Let's end hypocrisy and promote equality.

Follow Christine Pelosi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sfpelosi

Comments

[Christine Pelosi - Huffpost Blogger]

UPDATE - Sanford is reimbursing the state of South Carolina for travel costs. Which is good because he campaigned against excess spending on state travel: http://www.sanfordforgovernor.net/content.asp?id=57512&action=detail&catID=4598&parentID=4598&summary_page=4.

[superstition]

"A smart Senate and House leader....

...would immediately bring up for a vote the repeal of DOMA while the Republicans are reeling from their second (adultery) eruption in a week. Let the Republicans start talking about the protection of traditional marriage. Just let them. If anything, the DOMA repeal FORCES the entire country to keep talking about the ongoing GOP sex scandals.

Calling Harry and Nancy..."

-- John Aravosis

[zukiphile]

To all who are allegedly upset about Sanford's "hypocrisy":

How candid is it to assert the significance of Sanford's personal error as related to political positions you do not share? Have the residents here spent many words condemning Obama for promising fiscal restraint in his campaign, but engaging in the very opposite? Where are the ostentatious proclamations that Obama is a hypocrite for maintaining the practice of extra-ordinary rendition? Do we need to bring up the issue of workplace sexual harrassment and WJC?

If people who advocate a standard that they've fallen short of really make your skin crawl, congratulations. You are better than all the people at an AA meeting. If you've employed this fellow's failure as an opportunity to cynically serve your own political talisman, are you in any way better than what you've alleged Sanford is?

[been2there]

The problem is that he advocates what he is not willing to give, and that his "family values" are part of his platform. He is failing to deliver what he promised.
Obama is trying to jumpstart the economy before things get even worse. He is also investing in America, not wasting money trying to show his cojones are bigger than his father's were.

[zukiphile]

"He is failing to deliver what he promised."

He promised voter's he would not have sex outside his marriage? Really?

"Obama is trying to jumpstart the economy before things get even worse. He is also investing in America, ..."

Except that Obama specifically promised fiscal conservatism. Is it OK for him to disregard his explicit promises?

[hhscarletgray]

People who advocate a standard that they've fallen short of does not make my skin crawl. People who actively campaign to deny me my rights makes my skin crawl. Someone who defends the sanctity of marriage while cheating on his wife makes my skin crawl. Someone who says the love I share for my boyfriend somehow destroys his marriage while he cheats on his wife makes my skin crawl. Someone who does not understand how offensive it is for an adulterer to say he deserves the right to marry and I do not makes my skin crawl.

[zukiphile]

I think that simply asserting that you have the right to involve the state in a contract is a very long way from actually explaining why you should have such a right where the legal process has come to a different conclusion. Of course, you've never been denied the right to marry, and Sanford never argued that your love destroys marriage. There are reasonable bases for upholding duly enacted marriage laws.

http://marriagelaw.cua.edu/law/cases/az/standhardt/appct/opinion.pdf

Politics isn't an especially sensitive business, so it is sometimes baffling that very sensitive people would take an interest in it.

[M1]

Great post!

[Zanti]

Outstanding article--and utterly true. I imagine there are people arguing, in his defense, that Sanford made a bad choice. The kind of choice, of course, that he would deny to select others.

[zukiphile]

Sanford wanted to deny others the choice of sex outside marriage? I am no expert on the man, but it seems he would have drawn more attention if he had proposed making infidelity illegal.

[JuliaRain]

No, the choice to be married.

[Zanti]

You seem to insist on making the obvious and simple as difficult as possible. As if there was a shortage of complication in the world....

[FlexSF]

Attention fellow equality supporters: don't think for a second that we can relax. The religious zealots who hate us will continue to hate. We must support every effort to win our equality, in any venue possible. Weather we need to kiss voter's asses for permission to get married, send money to the state of Maine, and keep our brothers and sisters marriage rights intact, or provide moral support to Perry Vs. Schwarzenegger on July 2 09', let's do it, and rise up against religious zealotry with every opportunity!

We can see straight through the shallow morals of the religious homophobes, but they are blindly follow repeat their mistakes over and over. Don't let them!

[superstition]

The irony of the Schwarzenegger point is that he refused to defend Prop 8 in federal court, while the Obama administration filed briefs in defense of DADT and DOMA.

Concerning the latter:
http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/obama-justice-department-defends-doma.html

[ignoranceequalsfear]

Thank you so very much!
You are a leader!

As Spider Man says, with power comes responsibility.
Use it well and keep up the good fight!

[JuliaRain]

Excellent and to the point! Thank you.

[obtusegoose]

Terrific column. 'Nuf said :o)

[superstition]

"Anyone...who sets themselves up as morally superior to others will face the consequences."

Is that why our President's polling numbers are down?

He recognized the equality gay Americans have (marriage) under the Constitution in 1996, "unequivocally". No longer.

Now we have his support of DADT, DOMA (incest/pe­dophilia), refusal to stop firing 264+ troops, and his promulgation of the Segregation-style civil union (in a country that is secular because of the 1st Amendment).

By saying our marriages only deserve second-class "civil union" status, he's saying we're lesser people.

What basis does he have for this position? Apparently the personal belief, religious or otherwise, that "marriage is between a man and a woman" - a specious comment since that's true of heterosexual marriage only. Gay people are gay.

It's a scientific fact that homosexuality is a sexual orientation and isn't a disorder. It's been known since 1956 with the work of Dr. Hooker, work that was independently verified by three separate experts and then by the APA as a whole in 1973. The fact that homosexuality isn't a disorder means there is no rational basis for any form of discrimination. The belief in heterosexual superiority is unscientific and prohibited from being put into law by the 1st Amendment's prohibition on theocratic law.

So, yes, hopefully we'll see further polling reductions until the President decides to stop being a "family values" politician who doesn't support families with gay people in them.

[StoicRep]

People are sympathetic to a man who has marital trouble, but they are not sympathetic with homosexuals who want or do not want children. If we lived in China or India, public opinion might be different.

This is unlikely to ever be a popular political concern. It is at least as undesirable as partial birth abortion.

[superstition]

Michele Obama spoke of a civil rights struggle "from Selma to Stonewall" at a 2008 fundraiser, according to the AP.

More importantly, due to the ACTION of she and her husband, Coretta Scott King said:

"For too long, our nation has tolerated the insidious form of discrimination against this group of Americans, who have worked as hard as any other group, paid their taxes like everyone else, and yet have been denied equal protection under the law...

'

Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement,' she said. 'Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions.'"

"I believe that freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience."

[darker]

Good riddance to Mr. Sanford.
One iota LESS REPUBLICAN HYPOCRISY about
their pet anti-privacy, anti-choice, anti-gay policies.

Republicans REFUSE TO WAKE UP and
smell their POLITICAL STENCH to everyone else.

[Christine Pelosi - Huffpost Blogger]

Anyone - Republican or Democrat - who sets themselves up as morally superior to others will face the consequences. Having donated to Eliot Spitzer and voted for John Edwards (in 2004), I can empathize with Republican supporters of John Ensign and Mark Sanford who thought their family values advocate was the real deal - that stings.

Worse, however, than the sting of hypocrisy is the deep harm done by the anti-privacy, anti-choice, anti-gay policies that place government in other people's bedrooms and deny people basic rights.

That harm is the purpose of my post: with all the lurid details reporting (and frankly TMI in the emails), no proof yet that a same sex marriage caused Sanford to undermine his.

[zukiphile]

"That harm is the purpose of my post: with all the lurid details reporting (and frankly TMI in the emails), no proof yet that a same sex marriage caused Sanford to undermine his."

Since no one has argued that Sanford's marriage was undermined by same sex marriage, you last part is an egregious strawman.

However, the first part of you sentence is frank. I have no doubt you disagree with Sanford on SSM or partial birth abotion. Attirbuting his position to a personal vice reads very much as your own veiled claim of moral superiority. In fact, it is safe to assume unless you correct us, that you don't actually believe Sanford's personal flaws (including lying to wife, staff and public) bear any relation to your opposition to his policial views.

[StevenWells]

Not until we have a whole new crop of Republicans (not that we don't need a whole new crop of Democrats as well) will we see an end to their hypocritical bleating about so-called morals issues - while behind the scenes they break any number of the commandments they supposedly hold so dear. Two things one can assume about any Republican demagoguery: 1) it's entirely to score political points and 2) it's a safe bet they are doing or have done whatever it is they're complaining about.

I generally feel that the legal sexual activity of even a public official is nobody's business, unless they make it a practice to promote policies and laws which punish others for theirs; then they're fair game. And when they can blame Obama for the exploding budget deficit or whine with a straight face that Dems exclude them from the legislative process, it seems that hypocrisy of the sexual kind is the only type left that causes Republicans to express any shame or embarrassment.

[StevenWells]

Not until there's a whole new crop of Republicans (not that we don't need a whole new crop of Democrats as well) will we see an end to their hypocritical bleating about so-called morals issues - while behind the scenes they break any number of the commandments they supposedly hold so dear. There are basically two things one can assume about any type of Republican demagoguery: 1) it's entirely to score political points and 2) it's a good bet that they're doing or have done whatever it is they're complaining about.

I generally feel that any public official's legal sexual activity is nobody's business, unless they make it a practice to promote policies and laws that punish others for theirs; then they're fair game. And hypocrisy of the sexual kind seems to be the only type left that causes Republicans to express any shame or embarrassment.

[roshni]

i am loving every minute of Sanford's embarrassment. he is a sanctimonious hypocrite and a hater.