Interns and Other Playthings
July 24, 2001

by Joe Sobran

     Trent Lott of Mississippi, the Republican Senate 
minority leader, said recently that Congressman Gary 
Condit of California should resign his House seat simply 
for having had an affair with an intern. Whether or not 
he also had a hand in Chandra Levy's disappearance, 
Condit had fatally disgraced himself.

     The reaction was telling. By Lott's criterion, 
Democrats retorted, half the members of Congress would 
have to quit.

     Now they tell us! Three years ago the Democrats were 
clucking that it was "reprehensible" that Bill Clinton 
had played around with an intern. Of course they denied 
that it was an impeachable offense, but they wanted the 
public to know they didn't take it lightly. They even 
talked of "censure" for Clinton.

     Now they come right out and treat sex with interns 
as the norm, with no pretense of disapproval. Condit acts 
guilty and appears impenitent, yet he is under no 
pressure from his fellow Democrats to resign.

     Are the Republicans turning up the heat? No. They 
are afraid of appearing "partisan" by insisting on 
applying elementary standards of honor to the Democrats. 
Or maybe they are afraid that their own ranks would be 
thinned if the Democrats and their media allies, 
including Larry Flynt, should start looking into 
Republican conduct.

     During the 1998 impeachment proceedings, after all, 
when adultery in office became an issue, there were more 
Republican than Democratic casualties. When a Republican 
is caught in sexual license, it's a disgrace; it proves 
he's a hypocrite, and therefore fair game for the press. 
When a Democrat is caught, it's just his "private life" 
-- or his "lifestyle." The press reacts with indulgence, 
because Democratic deviations call for "tolerance."

     Such are the rules today. If you uphold traditional 
morality, you risk being charged with hypocrisy -- worst 
of sins! -- if you, or anyone on your side, is found to 
have sinned. Whereas if you undermine that morality, your 
own immoral behavior proves your consistency, even your 
integrity. So it's safer to attack than to defend 
morality.

     But as John O'Sullivan has put it, the defense of 
virtue can't be left to the virtuous. All of us owe it to 
God, and to each other, to honor standards that we may 
not always observe with perfect scruples. If you lie or 
steal, you are still bound to uphold honesty in 
principle. Lying and stealing don't give you the right to 
defend such practices.

     The same applies to sexual morality. People don't 
really disagree about it as much as they pretend to. We 
all know that certain practices are degrading. Nobody 
admires a prostitute. Even pagans have honored chastity. 
Rape is not only a torture but a defilement. Even 
masturbators are ashamed of themselves, which is why Hugh 
Hefner hit on the brilliant idea of endowing pornography 
with glamour and portraying the PLAYBOY reader as an 
upscale swinger. (If you believe that, just look at the 
guys at the porn rack sometime.)

     The deeper hypocrisy lies in affecting not to know 
right from wrong. Ordinarily decent people don't want 
their children exposed to porn, much less to be "sexually 
active" -- or promiscuous, as we used to say. The 
prevalence of the "new morality" fostered by the media 
has made many parents give up in quiet despair, afraid to 
assert their real beliefs even within their families. 
This seems to have been the case in poor Chandra Levy's 
family: her parents and other relatives were too 
diffident to discourage her from having an affair with a 
married man.

     We are constantly urged to "get in touch with our 
feelings." This usually means indulging our baser 
feelings. But we really need to get in touch with our 
nobler feelings, which include the aspiration to 
chastity, to sexual honor and integrity.

     These are the feelings that are outraged when 
Othello is convinced of Desdemona's infidelity, or when 
Don Pedro learns that Don Giovanni has debauched his 
daughter. According to the "new morality," Othello and 
Don Pedro overreact irrationally; there is no such thing 
as sexual "debauchery." But the play and the opera are 
great precisely because we recognize the validity of the 
passions that drive them.

     The modern world is trying to shrug off things that 
are built into our nature. This hypocrisy is far more 
destructive than the older kind.

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