For GOP, Affairs Are OK if They Aren't Gay

This op-ed column from the Seattle Times (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/330502_robert06x.html)highlights the double standard applied to extra-marital affairs by the GOP. Apparently, "family values" is a pretty lose term as longs as gay sex is nowhere in the picture. Here are some excerpts:

If you are a politician who wants to engage in an extramarital sex romp, the GOP is the place to be. As long as you pick a lover of the opposite sex and keep the number of liaisons discreetly low, fellow Republicans won't rush to oust you. But know this: Should there be even a whiff of homosexual goings-on, you're toast. The Republican Taliban will come after you, wearing a "breastplate of righteousness" that blinds the public with its glare and hides something deeper.

For Republicans, carnal indiscretions, more likely than not, get a pass when they involve heterosexuals:

The late Republican Congresswoman from Idaho, Helen Chenoweth-Hage, admitted to having an affair with a married man in the 1980s. That revelation didn't prevent her from getting re-elected.

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter, a devout Catholic, was convicted for DUI when he was a lieutenant governor and lost his marriage a year after meeting a Miss Idaho USA winner who was more than two decades his junior. They married last year. None of that has been a big problem for his fellow Republicans in a "red" state.

Former Sen. Bob Packwood of Oregon might have survived allegations that he made unwanted sexual advances toward female employees while in office, but the number of accusers was too big to push under a rug: 17.

But the Republican Party, in seeking to appeal to its Christian conservative base, has claimed a mantle of moral superiority. It has framed homosexuality as the unforgivable sin -- worse than adultery between a man and a woman -- even though adultery isn't exactly in keeping with the party's "family values" mantra.

To be fair, Democrats aren't immune. Jim McGreevey was the boy-wonder governor of New Jersey until he stepped down after announcing he had an extramarital affair with a man on his staff. But here's the thing with Democrats: As a matter of platform or policy, they don't go around assailing homosexuality the way Republicans do -- so much that even gays in the GOP are forced to lead double lives on the down low.

The GOP: the Party of hypocrisy.