MIXING SEX AND POLITICS

At first blush it would seem that politics and sex wouldn't mix, but we Americans are so obsessed with both subjects that we find it next to impossible to keep them separated. I think a good argument can be made that our country suffers greatly because of that failure. While we as a nation focus on who slept with whom, unsolved economic and political problems fester and grow worse by the day.

Take Herman Cain, for example, a G.O.P. presidential candidate. Multiple women have alleged that he groped and sexually harassed them during his tenure as president of the National Restaurant Association. Recently, an Atlanta woman confessed to carrying on a 13-year affair with Cain. The result of those revelations is that millions of Americans are now riveted to the titillating details of Cain's sexual dalliances instead of discussing the merit, or lack thereof, to his political and economic proposals. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, we're no closer to any solutions for our national problems.

Back when Bill Clinton was president and I was arguing against the appropriateness of Impeachment over his sexual indiscretions, my conservative friends denounced that position with the argument that sexual morality was a necessary character trait for America's highest office holder. I still think that's a load of crap. Historians credit George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy with carrying on extra-marital affairs and all those Presidents are viewed as having served extraordinary presidencies. The most morally pious president in my lifetime, Jimmy Carter, is roundly viewed as somewhat a bust. Americans would do well to remember that we're not electing a pope; we're electing a president!

Homosexual rights, abortion and contraceptive freedom are all about sex, but the stances that politicians take on those issues frequently holds sway over how individual Americans vote. That's why right-wing G.O.P. politicians can advocate policies that result in poverty and hunger and death for many, and yet be seen as champions of the right to life. It's also why those same politicians can stonewall necessary economic solutions, like increasing taxation of the rich, without suffering voter backlash from their constituency. In American politics, positions on sex-related issues trump all other positions…and we're paying a steep price for that foolishness.