Foley scandal ripe for political opportunism

Hans Johnson's article on "The Role of the Religious Right in the Foley Affair" caught my attention this morning. You wouldn't expect anything less from Johnson on this, but one part did catch my attention:

Complete lack of independence from the GOP is one reason the religious right has a hand in scandals like the Foley affair. Americans hold it as a kind of axiom that clergy should stand apart from politicians and call out their defects and excesses when necessary. Such was the case in the Lewinsky affair, even among progressive ministers. For instance, in 1998, Rev. Joan Brown Campbell of the National Council of Churches opened the door to congressional censure of then-President Clinton for what she called “sinful acts.” Yet no such independence is observed among the religious right. This June, Dobson had to devote a page of the magazine to coming clean about his ties to Jack Abramoff and the other Republican corruption scandal. In classic Dobson fashion, the disclosure was wrapped in an attack on “liberal” philanthropist George Soros and titled, with the subtlety of a schoolyard taunt, “We’re calling your bluff.” So much for mea culpa.

Campbell's position on Clinton is a little distorted here and Johnson pulls the reference from the New York Times out of context. Here is what Campbell said:

One nationally prominent minister who will attend Friday's breakfast, the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, said she was not prepared to call for Clinton's resignation.

"That is a rush to judgment that I am not prepared to make," Ms. Campbell said.

But she added, "The nation has to be clear that when people do sinful acts -- which we all do -- there have to be consequences."

She said she thought that a censure by Congress of Clinton "might be necessary" for the country to feel it was moving ahead.

Clearly, Campbell called for censure as a stop-gap to those calling for Clinton's resignation. It's not as if Campbell (or any progressive/mainline leaders for that matter) was leading the charge for censure out of a concern for the moral lapse of the President and Johnson's characterization as such is a distortion.

On the flip side of this, the United Church of Christ became the first mainline church to speak out on the issue this week when it issued a politically opportunistic press release calling for Representative Dennis Hastert (R-IL) to resign his position as Speaker of the House:

Because UCCTakeAction focuses primarily on legislation rather than individuals, we have never encouraged our 21,000 members to call for anyone’s resignation in Washington, DC.  However, today we are breaking precedent by asking you to e-mail your member of Congress to call on Representative Dennis Hastert (R-IL) to resign his position as Speaker of the House.  For over a year, and maybe longer, House leaders knew of Congressman Mark Foley’s (R-FL) appalling behavior of sending sexually explicit instant messages and emails to underage high school students serving as congressional pages.  And they did nothing.

Yes, it's political opportunism at it's worse, but it's also tough to disagree with. The more we find out, the worse it looks for Hastert.

Comments

[Martin]

Thanks for pointing out that UCC press release asking for Hastert's resignation.

I think that under the circumstances in the UCC, integrity would require them either to ordain Mark Foley to the ministry for having had the "conversion" experience of being outed or call for John Thomas to resign also because he has actively endorsed the same kind of behavior that Hastert allegedly only ignored and never promoted.

Mark Foley was just engaging in the homosexuality the UCC calls normal and unsinful.

They can't have it both ways ethically (no pun intended).