This Week's Attitude
Politicians Should Be Last Ones To Hype Family Values
By Neil S. Friedman

The self-righteous political party that has prominently strutted family values as its core philosophy since President Clinton got caught with his pants down in the White House has had a few ethical and moral problems of its own lately.

Atop the list is the Mark Foley scandal that's turned into a never-ending shame with new evidence this week of even more intimate e-mails he allegedly sent to underage pages. While the GOP can't be held responsible for the ex-congressman's predatory activities, they should, nonetheless, be held accountable for mishandling the crisis - and the suspected subsequent cover-up - before it was made public.

Then there was the disclosure on a recent segment of "60 Minutes" that featured evangelical Christian David Kuo, the former White House head of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initia-tives, who essentially claims in a book he was promoting that Christian fundamentalists were seduced into supporting the Bush Administration, which publicly promoted their basic values then privately ridiculed the extremists of influential bloc which was critical in their two election victories.

If that's not hypocrisy then what is? Come to think of it, establishing a faith-based office in the confines of the White House, smacks of pandering to potential voters at taxpayer expense.

Some Democrats may have gloated over the Gay Old Party's recent sexually tinged trouble, but they should be careful about exploiting it. They'd be wise to remember: "Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." And any Democrat who pinpoints Foley as the root of the GOP's problems has got some BIG stones, not to mention out of touch!

Now and forever, Republicans must end their vocal campaign of disgust for homosexuality, which borders on hate crime utterances, not only because it's wrong but also because some party members, not to mention more than a few supporters, adhere to that alternative lifestyle.

Other than the obvious, like the war-without-end in Iraq, there's certainly more sullied family values fodder, not the least of which is the recent GOP-related incidents of corruption, to critique.

While flaunting the family values way of life, in-cluding a failed effort to get a constitutional amendment to block gay marriages, to secure conservative red state votes, Republicans forgot that one family's values may be wholly different from another's. Therefore, any political party or individual politician that champions those standards better ensure there are no skeletons - or scandalous episodes - in their own closets.

There is, nonetheless, a wide cultural gap between the tens of millions of conservatives in rural America (AKA red states), who adhere to tradition, and urbanites from the Northeast and patches of the Midwest and West coast (AKA blue states), who gravitate towards change and progress. That chasm includes disparities on a number of issues ranging from abortion to gun control and evolution to the public role of Christianity, has given the Republicans an 11-seat advantage in the Senate and a wider margin in the House since 1994. The Foley incident was initially believed to change that balance, but a recent survey indicated that nearly half of those polled said it would not affect their vote because "inappropriate relationships between lawmakers and staffers is common." In fact, one result may ultimately be a lower-than-normal turnout if discontented voters decide not to cast ballots in two weeks.

But what is more startling about the poll is that Evangelical Christians say the impact of the Foley scandal is "limited." How forgiving! Too bad they didn't react like that when the Clintons were in the White House.

No doubt there are those who publicly boost righteousness, act appropriately and regularly attend religious services, but in the privacy of their homes, they may possibly engage in occasional domestic violence, abuse alcohol, among other non-family value-like actions.

All families have their own problems and all families have their own values and no "glass house" politician or political party should be peddling family values.

Despite the Foley scandal's sleaze factor, it is, by and large, just another chapter in the bulging tome of two-faced politicians who publicly express what they believe constituents want to hear and privately follow a different drummer for personal gain. In Foley's case, he was a wolf in sheep's clothing as he advanced legislation protecting minors from online predators while he allegedly pursued them for personal gratification.

The Foley scandal should be a lesson that, while family values may differ from one family - and one region - to the next, the most imperative value to respect is rather undemanding: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you or, as The Beatles sang, "And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make."