For your daily dose of schadenfraude…
If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s worth watching this video of Indiana Rep. Mark “Morally and Physically Repellent” Souder, the family values-touting Republican who just announced his resignation after admitting his affair with a staffer. In it, the woman with whom he was cheating on his wife interviews Souder about his passionate support for abstinence education. Ha. Real glad he was doing his best to keep teens from engaging in sex outside of the sacred bonds of marriage. The video, which up until yesterday was featured on Souder’s website but has naturally been saved for posterity: Rep. Souder and Tracy Jackson, discussing abstinence
Seriously, shouldn’t we be waayyyy past the point when any politician can legitimately lay claim to the “family values” title? How many times does this sort of hypocrisy have to come to light before we as a society acknowledge that no politician ought to be dictating to us what to do with our families and in our bedrooms?
Plus, an update in another fun family values story, the sordid case of George Rekers– the anti-gay Baptist minister and clinical psychologist revealed to have gone on a 10 day jaunt in Europe with a male prostitute. First of all, I think the moment when reporters discover you’ve taken a male prostitute with you to Europe is the time where you ought to go ahead and admit that you’re self-loathing and closeted. NOT the time to protest that you hired this guy to carry your luggage or that you were trying to show him the error of his homosexual ways.
Anyway. Rekers has already resigned from the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (not because he realizes he has no business telling people how not to be gay, but so that he can focus on his fight against “the false media reports that have been made against me.” Right.) NYT points out another potential ramification of the scandal:
Regardless of what occurred in Europe, the trip could affect cases in the United States. Dr. Rekers’ involvement, for example, has been critical in a suit challenging a Florida law banning adoption by gay parents. His testimony was a major part of Attorney General Bill McCollum’s defense of the statute, for which the state paid Dr. Rekers $120,000.
Mr. McCollum has distanced himself from Dr. Rekers. “It is safe to say that if this case moves beyond this stage, Mr. Rekers will have no further involvement in the case,” said Ryan Wiggins, a spokeswoman for Mr. McCollum. “We will certainly not be recommending him in the future.”
According to the article, it might not be so easy to find another “expert” to replace Rekers in the Florida case. McCollum told reporters that “There were only two willing to step forward and testify, and we searched a long time.” Hmmm, maybe because there isn’t actually any credible evidence supporting the absurd notion that gay people shouldn’t be allowed to adopt? A Florida Circuit Court declared Florida’s adoption law unconstitutional back in 2008; the case is now in appellate court, where the AG will apparently have to move forward without Rekers’ testimony.
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