The steady stream of Republican sex scandals, besides providing plenty of schadenfreude, serves to highlight the true bankruptcy of the GOP’s family values agenda. They show no hesitancy to purge a gay man from their ranks. But when Senator Vitter openly confesses to soliciting prostitutes, his Republican colleagues shrug, wink, and call it a private affair. Josh Marshall has it right: If you’re a Republican and you want to misbehave sexually, make sure it’s with a chick.
Christian conservatives may claim to love the sinner and hate the sin, but a comparison of the treatments Vitter and Craig received seems to undermine that motto. Homosexuality strikes a deep chord of revulsion in a significant minority of conservatives, to the detriment of the party. The GOP would be better off if it jettisoned its rabid homophobic wing and focused on things they can all agree on, like denying health insurance to kids and demonizing Hillary Clinton.
