In a recent post OS member Aaroncynic asks "Why Do We Still Care About Politicians' Married Lives?"   He concludes that we shouldn't.  He notes that "how one's marital status affects one's ability to say, decide whether or not torture should be practiced is beyond me," and that"until we can get beyond trotting out someone's various relationship issues in a soundbyte shouting match, the prevailing perception will be that Americans care more about what goes on in someone's bedroom than about issues like poverty or war."

Certainly it does seem that what goes on in the bedroom is quite trivial compared to war and peace, hunger, torture, and countless other life and death issues.  So really, why should we care about what politicians do in their private lives, given how insignificant sex is compared to all of these other issues?

Imagine, for example, that we were all working in a coal mine -- just us -- and a canary.  One day the canary dies.

Some would say that the canary is an insignificant creature compared to a human.  In a pet store you can buy a canary for a few dollars.   The death of a canary does not threaten that avian species, and it certainly poses no threat to us or to our work in the mine.

But the problem is that the death of a canary in a mine may be a sign that something terrible has gone wrong -- it is possibly an early warning sign of a much greater problem, something that perhaps has even life and death consequences.

In modern times we tend to have a compartmentalized view of life.  We have our work lives, our recreation lives, our sex lives, and so on, and what goes on in one compartment is thought not to have anything to do with the others.  I suggest that the reality is quite different.

Sex isn't just sex; it has all sorts of other implications, especially (but not only) if it involves marital infidelity.  It relates to truth and falsehood, openness and secrecy, loyalty and betrayal, care and indifference, honesty and lying, promises and the breaking of promises.

In that context how one behaves sexually is one's personal "canary in a coal mine," and a sexual infidelity may have implications of much greater importance than the act itself. 

Sexual indescretions can indicate a tolerance for falsehood, secrecy, betrayal, and a general lack of ethical standards leading even to illegal activities or large-scale corruption.

Jackie Battley Gingrich supported him through graduate school and two unsuccessful congressional campaigns. She had undergone uterine cancer surgery during the successful 1978 campaign, which Gingrich was not averse to mentioning in his speeches. Eighteen months later, they separated. While in the hospital recovering from another uterine operation, according to his friend Lee Howell, “"Newt came up there with his yellow legal pad, and he had a list of things on how the divorce was going to be handled. He wanted her to sign it. She was still recovering from surgery, still sort of 'out of it,' and he comes in with a yellow sheet of paper, handwritten, and wants her to sign it.” According to Howell, friends in her church had to raise money for the separated wife of the congressman and her daughters.

Beyond what he did to his wife, think about what Gingrich's behavior and intential actions say about the larger implications of his willingness to betray, to be indifferent, to break a promise, to use someone for his own advantage and then dump her while she was recovering from cancer surgery.  Based on that alone I would say that this is not someone who could be counted on to act in the public interest.

We see the same betrayal of public trust even with those who aren't politicians.  In 1980 television evangelist Jim Bakker had an affair with Jessica Hahn.  Once again, this was the "canary in the coal mine," and we were not surprised to hear of fradulent fundraising activities,  a ministry with no financial accountability, hush money paid to Ms. Hahn, and what was in effect a theft of funds from his contributors.

 In 2005 Sam Adams, now mayor of Portland, Oregon, began a romantic relationship with a young man who was 17 years old at the time and serving as a political intern.  Adams was 42 years old.  Around the time when the young man turned 18 the relationship became sexual.  When Adams' relationship became an issue in the 2008 Portland mayoral election,  Adams denied that the relationship existed and also asked the young man to lie about it.  Based on those lies Adams went on to win the election.  The Portland gay community is split, with some supporting Adams and some asking him to resign. 

Many citizens feel that a man who lies in order to win an election can't be trusted not to lie in other things, and a committee to recall the mayor has been formed.  While the relationship was not illegal many feel that it was inaprorpriate, and in any case was the thing that inspired the lies that led to his election as mayor.

 The list, of course, could go on and on and would include liberals, conservatives, Democrats, and Republicans.  Just the last couple of days we have learned that the governor of South Carolina basically abandoned his state in order to have an affair.  In many of these cases we would see the same things over and over again.  The sexual indescretion often

1) spawns lies, conspiracies, secrecy, and cover-ups, or

2)  is one element of a larger web of corruption, or

3) is often a sign of a character defect that calls into question the fitness for public service  of the individual in question.

So we should care about the sexual lives of politicians, not in a moralistic sense, not in the name of "values," and not to throw dirt on someone, but simply so that we can have trustworthy public servants who will do a good job of governing.  If a person will cruelly betray his or her spouse, cover up the betrayal alone or in conspiracy with others, and lie about it in public, what it is that he or she won't do?

While it is true that some politicians have had affairs and still been good leaders, the question is whether we want to gamble on that.  In my humble opinion it is entirely reasonable to hold these people to a high standard -- not the standard of perfection, but perhaps we can at least expect them not to stab their spouses in the back and then lie about it.  If we expect more, perhaps they will behave better.