Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery

Exodus 20:14 (NIV, Courtesy of BibleGateway.com):

14 “You shall not commit adultery.

It’s very simple. Virtually everyone knows that it’s one of the Ten Commandments, and even non-believers know that it’s a basic measure of trustworthiness, regardless of what they think of the Commandments themselves.

This afternoon, former Senator, former Vice-Presidential candidate, and former Presidential candidate John Edwards confessed that he failed that measure. He has now confirmed a story broken by the National Enquirer, and I’m afraid that it wasn’t the one about aliens on the moon.

I had truly hoped that this story was going to be, as Edwards had called it, nothing but “tabloid trash full of lies.” That certainly wasn’t because I have any great loyalty to Sen. Edwards himself, but because I’m tired. I’m tired of philandering politicians, and the damage that they do — to their families and to our nation. On a personal level, I also hoped that he wouldn’t do such a thing to his family. What message did he just give his children? What did he just tell his daughters about their future lives? If you marry, and your husband decides to have a sleazy affair while holding you up as a prop in his campaign, then you should …

Fill in the blank yourself. Sadly, the answer obviously isn’t “Do what you need to do to deal with your feelings and your pain.” My heart goes out to Elizabeth and her children. I have nothing but contempt for John himself. She did not deserve this. When it’s all said and done, we see plainly that Elizabeth is the strong member of that family — she continued trying to work for his Presidential ambitions while dealing with her own cancer, yet he couldn’t even remain true to his wedding vows in such a basic, fundamental way as to avoid going to bed with a woman who wasn’t his wife.

Yesterday, Sean Hannity opened his radio show with this story, and was actually doing pretty well until he got his first caller. That caller said something like, “If you keep moralizing about this, you’re going to sacrifice Gingrich on the same altar.” Hannity cut him off and explained why that wasn’t the case.

Let me make it clear — I’m fine with that. I don’t care if the philanderer is John Edwards or Newt Gingrich, Ted Kennedy or Rudy Giuliani, Bill Clinton or John McCain. These people have betrayed their wives, and deserve universal contempt, no matter what their voting records or party affiliations might be. Let me go on — if next it is Mike Huckabee who is accused of cheating on his wife, and he denies it for months, then finally comes out admitting that he’s been trapped, I will go back into every single pro-Huckabee post that I’ve done since I started this blog, and amend them with a disclaimer calling him what he would be: a liar and a hypocrite. In 1992, the Republican campaign focused on the slogan “Character Counts.” I meant it then, and I still mean it now.

So, why is it that I personally feel this way? After all, as every adulterer likes to remind us, we’re supposed to forgive, and Jesus said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” And, beyond that, Jesus also calls me an adulterer, since anyone who’s looked lustfully at a woman has already committed adultery in his heart.

I’ll admit that, of course. That is a thing that has to be handled on a spiritual and between-God-and-me sort of way. However, I’m not talking about stoning John Edwards, Newt Gingrich, or anyone else. I’m talking about whether these people are fit for public service. Not being trusted with high office is not the same as being stoned to death.

When the President takes the oath of office and swears to uphold and protect this nation and the Constitution, he’s promising to protect a bunch of people he doesn’t know and for whom he doesn’t, in any kind of personal sense, care.

When these men swore their wedding vows, presumably, they cared about their wives. If they can betray these women about whom they care, what makes you think for a moment that they will take better care of total strangers? Why do they deserve any trust? What makes anyone think that their word is worth anything?

While the philanderers and their defenders like to fall back on a couple of Jesus’ remarks, I’d like to point out that Jesus didn’t only say that. He also told the parable of the talents (a talent, by the way, is money … consider it to be about $1,000 per talent). Matthew 25:14-30 (NIV, copied from BibleGateway.com):

The Parable of the Talents

14“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. 15To one he gave five talents^[a] of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. 16The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. 17So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. 18But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.19“After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. 20The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.’

21“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

22“The man with the two talents also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.’

23“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

24“Then the man who had received the one talent came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’

26“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

28” ‘Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. 29For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. 30And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

These men were entrusted with some things of value — their wives, their families, the credibility of their vows — and betrayed them. They treated these things as if they had no value. Yes, forgiveness is possible. Yes, redemption is possible. However, that doesn’t mean that we dismiss the issues and reward them with more already. The late Henry Hyde, by the way, serves as an example of how to redeem oneself. He confessed to his wife before matters became public, and when it threatened to become public, he stepped up himself, apologized, and accepted the ramifications. I’m not sure if I would have supported him for an office beyond Congress, but he did do something that few other adulterous politicians do — he confessed without deriding his attacker. His attacker, by the way, was Larry Flynt, the smut lord, who had put out a reward offer for anyone who could prove an allegation against a Republican. It would have been easy to call this “Cash for Trash,” as Bill Clinton called the Gennifer Flowers story (which he later admitted), or simply to attack Flynt, a reprobate of the highest (or lowest, depending on how you look at it) order.

From the way things are headed, it looks like John Edwards is more likely to follow the Gary Hart career path — his adultery appears to have ended his political career. Good.

We live in a nation in which TV shows such as “Swingtown” and an endless array of soap operas celebrate adultery. Marriages are more likely to fail than last “’til death do we part.” (Disclosure: I am divorced, though adultery was not a factor in my divorce.) With every high-profile figure who betrays his or her marriage, yet goes on unhindered, the very notion of marriage as important is genuinely threatened.

This threat, by the way, is far greater than anything that the homosexual community could ever bring. The meaning of marriage is really under attack, and it’s by adulterers and those who celebrate, or at least tolerate, philandering. Let’s use this opportunity to make a choice — will we stand on principle, and say that we believe that marriage matters? or will we subordinate it to some other concerns? How important is honesty to you?

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