EVANGELICALS AND MARK FOLEY

• First, it is imperative to remember the ethics of what has happened with Mark Foley.  David Brooks has commented that our culture approaches things like this from two very different vantage points.  (1) He suggests that one vantage point is Eve Ensler’s play, The Vagina Monologues, a blockbuster play of a few years ago.  This play celebrates and seems to affirm a female sexual predator having sex with a 16-year old girl.  This event was a liberating one for the 16-year old according to the play and reflects the ethic of our postmodern culture, namely an “expressive individualism.”  Brooks suggests that under this ethic, the goal “is to throw off the shackles of social convention and to embark on a journey of self-discovery.  Behavior is not wrong if it feels good and doesn’t hurt anybody else.  Sex is not wrong as long as it is done by mutual consent.”  In Ensler’s universe, the play’s characters did nothing ethically wrong, for it was mutually pleasurable and fulfilling.  This is of course the ethic that drives the Playboy philosophy, the Cosmopolitan magazine culture, the homosexual agenda and generally the entire ethos of Postmodernism.  (2)  The other vantage point is an ethical code of behavior that views sexual predators as evil.  These sexual choices are determined within the framework of marriage, not the individual, autonomous self.  Brooks argues that “when an adult seduces a child, it tears the social fabric that joins all adults and all children.  When a congressman flirts with a page, it tears the social trust that undergirds the entire page program.  When an adult seduces a teenager, it ruptures the teenagers’ bond with his family, and harms the bonds joining other families.”  In this ethical code, individuals are not defined or driven by their autonomous choices or by their lifestyle; they are defined by their social functions as parents, job-holders and citizens.  I might add that all of these relationships of the social order are established by and defined by the Creator—Almighty God.  The horror of what Mark Foley did is defined by the latter ethic.  No one is framing this scandal according to the first ethic—expressive individualism or autonomy.  That would be horrific ethically.  Instead, everyone is arguing the second ethic, which I find interesting.  For those who are on the left wing of the political spectrum, there is an immense hypocrisy here.  Mark Foley violated the same ethic that framed the Bill Clinton scandal—violating the social and ethical function defined by God’s definition of sexual relationships.  Former Democratic Congressman Gerry Studds of Massachusetts, in the 1990s admitted to sexual contact with a page and went on to serve a decade longer in the House.  Further, the discussion is missing one very critical point:  Mark Foley is a homosexual and it is his lifestyle as a homosexual that drove him to make the email contacts with the pages in the first place.  That he is gay is what drove him to do what he did.  That fact is basically ignored in the media and by the left wing.  His gay lifestyle needs to be discussed, for that gave energy to his choices to be a sexual predator.  (3)  Finally, a word about how politicized this has become.  Brooks writes:  “In discussing the Foley case, the political class, with its unerring instinct for the aspect of any story that will be the least important to average Americans, has shifted attention from Foley’s act to Denny Hastert’s oversight of it.  It has fled morality to talk about management.  But the real import of the Foley story is Foley’s act itself.  In a country filled with parents looking for a way to raise their children in a morally disordered environment, Foley’s act is one more symptom of a contagious disease.  In the long run, the party that benefits from events like the Foley scandal will be the party that defines the core threats to the social fabric, and emerges as the most ardent champion of moral authority.”  As I look at this today, I am not encouraged that either party can do this.  To politicize this scandal, as is now being done, is to miss the whole point of it:  It is a metaphor for what has happened to American society.  Sexual lifestyles and choices have been so privatized and framed so much as expressive individualism and autonomy, that we seem shocked that a homosexual congressman should make sexually graphic and explicit comments via email to male 16-year olds.  It reminds me of Captain Renau in the movie “Casablanca,” who is “shocked that there is gambling going on in Rick’s café,” as the roulette wheel manager hands him “his winnings.”  Our culture is shocked when a sexual predator, Mark Foley, is acting out his homosexual lifestyle with congressional pages and then makes it an issue of management in Congress.  I can never defend the way Dennis Hastert or any other Republican leader has handled this scandal.  But the fundamental issue is not one of management; it is the self-destructive cycle of our postmodern, sexual expressiveness that produces such a scandal.  What a tragedy!  See Brook’s op ed piece in the New York Times (5 October 2006).

• Second, what about the political fallout?  All indications are right now that the GOP will take a major political hit because of the Foley scandal.  As stated above, making this a management issue further heightens the ethical lapses and partisan turmoil that have characterized especially the last two years of Republican rule.  As one GOP strategist suggested, the party’s mishandling of the Foley issue “speaks to our inability to govern and to do the right thing.  It says everything about who we are as a party.”  Perhaps the greatest danger in this case is that evangelicals will consider the ramifications of the scandal and not vote.  Some fear that this could lead to a greater level of apathy among evangelicals, a sentiment that could be devastating for the GOP.  However, there is growing evidence that this scandal may not be that critical.  Already, Iraq, the economy and President Bush himself are the far more critical issues that will determine voter behavior over the next few weeks before the election.  But there remains a major concern about the depth of evangelical loyalty to the GOP.  According to recent Pew polls, the portion of white evangelicals with a “favorable” impression of the Republican Party has fallen sharply in 2006, from 63% to 54%.  Even a subtle shift like this could spell trouble for this November’s election.  See Alan Cooperman, “GOP’s Hold on Evangelicals Weakening,” Washington Post (6 October 2006) and Michael Grunwald and Chris Cillizza, Washington Post (8 October 2006).