[Vision2020] Pia Hansen: Hypocrisy worse than transgressions

[Gray Tree Crab aka Big Bertha]

<http://www.spokesmanreview.com/>Saturday, November 3, 2007
Pia Hansen: Hypocrisy worse than transgressions

Pia K. Hansen
<http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news/bylines.asp?bylinename=Pia%20K.%20Hansen>
The Spokesman-Review
November 3, 2007

What a week we've had. On Tuesday, when stories of cross-dressing state Rep.
Richard Curtis and toe-manipulating Christian recording artist Nate
Schierman, with his fondness for middle-school girls, both ran I put down
the paper with a strong desire to take a shower.

It's been some time since I've seen that much perversion in one day. I'm
sure we almost qualified for an X-rating.

Such an eruption of sexual deviance is usually followed by a groundswell of
self-righteousness: The Washington state GOP erased all traces of Curtis
from Web sites, while his family packed up and left town – poof, the sparkly
legislator was gone.


Our blogs and letters talked about lost moral compasses and held many
suggestions as to what elected officials in Curtis' situation should do or
not do to avoid situations like this. Among the more unusual suggestions was
that politicians should submit to a mandatory annual lie detector test.

What specifically should we ask our politicians: Have you had any impure
thoughts lately? Do you desire red stockings? Do you own any sparkly
lingerie?

I fail to see how that would help anyone – including the politician being
questioned – not to mention that lie detectors aren't as accurate as we
would like for them to be.

I think we'd be much better off trying to wrap our minds around the fact
that elected officials are, mostly, human like the rest of us, complete with
Playboy subscriptions, the occasional four-martini dinner and associated odd
desires followed by bad decision-making.

When you run for office – Democrat, Libertarian, Republican, confused,
undecided, a little of both – whatever your label is, you don't sign a plea
of normalcy, promising to stick to the straight and narrow as long as you
serve.

One could hope that you strive to be a good role model, follow the law,
limit the hurt you inflict on others and make ethical decisions, but
everyone is human and as such fallible – at least that's what I learned in
Bible school.

I also remember my pastor talking a lot about forgiveness, but I'm not
seeing a lot of forgiveness here, especially not from the Christian crowd.

The one thing I do know is that there is no way Curtis is the last
legislator whose proudly held public morals will collide with a colorful
private life in an embarrassing way.

When that happens, let's hope the next wide-standing individual involved has
the guts to tell the truth: "Yes, that was me, that's what I did, that's who
I am. It was not my brightest moment, I have some explaining to do, and I'm
sorry if I hurt someone as I was busy indulging myself."

The trouble Curtis found himself in is not about being gay or closeted – who
knows, he could be both, he could be neither, to me it doesn't matter – what
matters to me is the underlying hypocrisy.

I can't stand hypocrites just like I can't stand people who lie to me.

Unfortunately, we still live in a culture where people can't always live
their lives freely in accordance with who they are, because they fear being
judged and ostracized. Maybe it's about time we start applying a little
tolerance instead.

-- 
Gray Tree Crab aka "Big Bertha"
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20071103/eff5c2a0/attachment.html