Republicans, Politicized Sex and Money

Republicans are attracted to sex like a moth to flame. On the one hand, many of them want the state to pressure people to have sex only under the circumstances with the kinds of partners of whom they approve. They want to politicize one of the most personal and intimate behaviors human beings engage in. They see no division between religion, identity, morality, economic policy and law in general. Granted there are obvious intersections. But they blur these things so much that they begin to insist on this law on moral grounds and that economic policy on religious grounds. They see sex with disapproved partners and under disapproved circumstances as "un-American." They see religion, particularly the Christian religion, as equivalent with American identity and they use both to justify a range of self serving economic ideologies with stark distributional implications.

In the context of this particular combination of world views, theologies, and ideologies, it should really surprise us that many of these same Republican politicians a) can't keep their pants zipped and b) make sex scandals worse by engaging in cover-ups, blackmail and bribery. If you remember the John Ensign (R-NV) scandal from back pre-Palin, pre-Jackson, and even pre-Sanford then you may not be surprised to learn that money and cover up are emerging as pieces of this scandal too. Ensign's parents paid his mistress nearly a hundred thousand dollars in hush money. We've also just heard that Tom Colburn (R-OK) knew about the affair and encouraged Ensign to end it quietly and quickly. Colburn is now claiming "doctor-patient" privilege and refusing further comment. You see, Colburn is an MD and while he is not Ensign's regular doctor, he feels that doctor-patient privilege covers this kind of thing. One wonders if he knew about the payments of hush money.

What is also coming out is that Ensign, Colburn and Sanford were all members of a secretive and cultish Christian group of powerful politicians called "The Family" - mostly Republican but with a couple Democrats. This organization has a house on C Street in Washington D.C. which they use to provide below market rate housing to several members of Congress. They push both a religious and rightwing-corporatist economic agenda in which large corporations benefit from state support at the expense of potential competition. They have a small chapel in the building and so have listed the building as a "church" for tax purposes. Religion, money, politics, sex....

What we have here is a small group of right wing politicians belonging to a secretive political organization masquerading as a church. These men, push a right wing political agenda while themselves engaging in self-destructive secret lives themselves. This is not my father's Republican party.