For this week’s Ask A Wingnut, the wingnut was asked why Republicans are such hypocrites about sex. And it’s true—-one wonders why, when straight Republican politicians are caught with their pants down, anyone thinks they owe the world an apology. Apologies are hypocritical. Their stance is clear—-straight men get to have all the sex they want with all the women they want. It’s not straight male sexuality, in any of its manifestations, that’s bringing down society. It’s women having sex without being punished repeatedly for it, and of course, gay men need to be run out of town for it. But this belief has become embarrassing for some reason to conservatives, and now they feel like they have to put on this whole front about male fidelity and responsibility. I think they think it’s a tradeoff—-straight women, you get to be forced to have babies against your will and die from cervical cancer. Gay men and lesbians, you get to be discriminated against and, if the system works right, you also get to fuck off and die without health insurance because you can’t get married or have a job under the conservative regime. In exchange, to show their interest in fairness, conservatives will require straight men to pretend to be sorry when they commit adultery. See? Everyone loses and so it’s fair. You lose your freedom, dignity, or health, and they lose entire minutes of pretending to be sorry. But only if they’re politicians. Having a fraction of a percentage of straight men required to sacrifice is enough to justify taking away the human rights of everyone else.
People are pointing to the latest faux repentant Senator Ensign to prove that conservatives are hypocrites. He signed a pledge stating he wouldn’t cheat, don’t you know? Which, of course, he also did when he got married, but let’s face it, cheating for men has always been built into the system and so no matter how many times you pretend to promise otherwise, everyone knows for men who believe in tradition, the traditional right to adultery comes with the territory. You just have to pretend to feel bad about it, as the Salon wingnut explains.
The United States remains a center-right country composed of people who believe in center-right values, like family, hard work and honesty. But also in forgiveness—which is why the public apology from those in positions of authority who have crossed lines that seemingly could not be crossed often survive—but only when those failings are a matter of personal behavior rather than public trust.
He failed to add that this is only true for straight guys, but I suppose that it’s implied in terms like “positions of authority”, or even in the concept of people who can transgress. Gay men lose their claim to personhood when they touch dudes, you see, and women never had it.
(And how do you like the idea that family, hard work and honesty are “center right” values? How is the relentless lying about sex, politics, and foreign policy—-everything, really—-from conservatives “honesty”? How is the routine valuing of straight white men over women and minorities who work their asses off valuing hard work? And let’s not even get into the idea that “family” is a value—-that really shows how much conservatives really don’t value families, that families, which are something most people have and are composed of living human beings, are more of a political “value” than a real thing.)
You see, under the desired conservative regime, straight women and gay people don’t get forgiveness when they have sex. With abortion banned, and access to birth control or even protection against STDs severely restricted, straight women can’t whimper and pretend to apologize and get out of their punishment. They will be forced to have babies as punishment for their sins, and no one gives a shit what they think about it. Conservatives don’t care what women think the rest of the time, of course, so why should they care on this subject? As for gays and lesbians, well, even though the fight right now is over gay marriage, don’t forget that conservatives didn’t like the decision in Lawrence v. Texas, either, and would have sodomy laws reinstated. So it’s not a matter of having to pretend to grovel a little before going back to your career in politics if you have gay sex—-it’s a matter of being thrown in jail. Forgiveness is a privilege for straight men, and even then, it only matters in politics, and let’s face it, they think you should only get it if you’re a Republican, to boot.
The only hypocrisy here is in conservatives pretending that they ever really cared to restrict straight male behavior. They only have eyes for punishing the gays and the ladies, and the sideshow about straight male politicians who stray is just a distraction circus.
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“Forgiveness is a privilege for straight men”
Scratch “privilege”. Replace with “automatic right”.