…and this is a 
Some epidemiologist ought to investigate this. There is a building on C Street in Washington DC which houses the offices of a fervent evangelical Christian contingent of conservative politicians, who are all, of course, paragons of probity. Except…something funny has been going on. Three of them have been publicly humiliated for their inability to keep their pecker in their pants.
Leisha Pickering said in the lawsuit filed this week that her husband and the woman dated in college, reconnected and began having an affair while he was in Congress and living in a building where several Christian lawmakers reside on C Street near the U.S. Capitol. Chip Pickering is the third Republican with ties to the building at 133 C Street SE to find his personal life making headlines in recent weeks, after Nevada U.S. Sen. John Ensign and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.
…
He cast himself as a defender of decency, particularly on television and the Internet, and was among House members urging then-President George W. Bush to declare 2008 "the National Year of the Bible."
Another lawmaker who lived at the C Street house, Ensign, a member of the Christian ministry Promise Keepers, stepped down from the Senate Republican leadership in June after admitting he had an affair for much of last year with a woman on his campaign staff.
Just days after the story broke, South Carolina Republican Gov. Mark Sanford admitted an affair with a woman in Argentina. He apparently never lived in the house, but has said he turned to "C Street" for counsel and solace while having the affair.
They're Christians, so it is simply inconceivable that they could have lapsed so far from the strict morality of their faith unless something underhanded is going on: some liberal probably spiked their water supply with Viagra, or sprayed aphrodisiacs into the air ducts.
Politics
Comments
Posted by: Alyson Miers | July 17, 2009 9:33 AM
Even if they were unknowingly dosed with Viagra or aphrodisiacs, why couldn't they just have sex with their wives?
Posted by: The Tim Channel
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July 17, 2009 9:36 AM
It's easy to convince yourself that sex with the other guy's wife is better.
Enjoy.
Posted by: Tulse | July 17, 2009 9:38 AM
This is the thing that most pisses me off about these people -- it's not the fundamentalist morality, but the hypocrisy.
Posted by: Janus
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July 17, 2009 9:40 AM
The building on C street doesn't house the politicians' offices, it houses the politicians. It's a boarding house for these weirdos.
Posted by: mr_subjunctive | July 17, 2009 9:40 AM
. . . some liberal probably spiked their water supply with Viagra, or sprayed aphrodisiacs into the air ducts.
They should be so lucky.
Posted by: KI | July 17, 2009 9:43 AM
The building in question is registered as a church, and so they don't pay property taxes on it.
Begin the outrage.
Posted by: Janus
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July 17, 2009 9:44 AM
I should add that C Street operates as a church, so exists tax free, and the politicians get to live there for far lower than market rates, and anything they say inside those four walls can be suppressed under the priest-penitent privilege. How convenient!
Posted by: Rey Fox | July 17, 2009 9:45 AM
We need to get this into the lexicon some way. C-Streeters.
Posted by: Kevin | July 17, 2009 9:47 AM
What pisses me off is that the house they're all living in is listed as a "Church" so that means they aren't paying property taxes. That's a load of crap.
Posted by: Peter McKellar | July 17, 2009 9:51 AM
Such mean atheists. These three were clearly not True Christians(TM) and were just pretending to be Republicans cuz it pulls all the chicks.
Posted by: Interrobang | July 17, 2009 9:54 AM
Guys like that are pure projection. The louder and longer they talk about decency, morality, and "family values," the more sleaze is lurking under their very large and lumpy rugs.
Do they by any chance have a red porch light on that C Street joint?
Posted by: Mozglubov | July 17, 2009 9:54 AM
I never understand the audacity of people to actively engage in public denunciation of the thing which they are privately doing. I mean, it is one thing to be specifically asked by a reporter what they think of something like the Clinton affair and offer some harsh words despite having affairs themselves, but to actively heap abuse and scorn on someone for doing the exact same thing you just haven't yet been caught doing takes a level of self-righteousness that is awfully irksome.
Posted by: NoAstronomer | July 17, 2009 9:56 AM
If there isn't anything in the water perhaps there should be?
Posted by: JD | July 17, 2009 9:56 AM
But, but, but he was a Promise Keeper.
Posted by: chris | July 17, 2009 9:57 AM
It's not the water or the air, it's the company they keep.
Posted by: False Prophet
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July 17, 2009 9:57 AM
Those last few commandments really are the hardest to keep, eh guys?
Posted by: telamonides | July 17, 2009 9:58 AM
Mmmm... could it be... SATAN!!!!!
Posted by: Rey Fox | July 17, 2009 10:01 AM
"C-Streeters."
Or "living on C Street". Much better than the whole Agentine thing, which is rather unfair to the Argentines.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 17, 2009 10:03 AM
Bromide would be an obvious candidate. Learning what being faithful during marriage actually means might be better though.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | July 17, 2009 10:06 AM
One wonders if there is any foot tapping going on in the men's room as well.
Posted by: Mozglubov | July 17, 2009 10:07 AM
What this kind of reminds me of is this comic...
Posted by: Happy | July 17, 2009 10:11 AM
I don't understand the fuss about them being Christians. They're living exactly as the bible intended: All the patriarchs had multiple wives and concubines.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | July 17, 2009 10:13 AM
Maybe it wouldn't be as much fun, but these guys could save themselves some embarrassment if they would avail themselves of this virtuous pro-life practice. If you're bound to get called a wanker anyway.... ;^)
Posted by: hjw | July 17, 2009 10:14 AM
The book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, by Jeff Sharlet, explains a lot about these mindset of these politicos.
Posted by: Peter McKellar | July 17, 2009 10:15 AM
OT - so much for papal in-fall-ibility ;)
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/07/17/pope.fall.wrist.broken/index.html
Posted by: Steven Dunlap | July 17, 2009 10:19 AM
Has no one read The Scarlet Letter? I'd settle for the crappy movie with Demi Moore. The harshest judge of the "fallen" woman is the guy who banged her. What's changed?
As for blaming the house, that's the first laugh I've had today. It's a variation on the rain-maker fallacy (pun intended). Similar to the "magic coconut" that someone tried to "sell" my brother in Florida which prevented snowfall within hundred of miles. My brother pointed out that it had not snowed in Florida for over a hundred years. The guy replied: "See how well it works!"
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | July 17, 2009 10:22 AM
hjw (@24):
As I type this, I'm listening (by podcast) to Rachel Maddow's interview with Sharlet from yesterday's show. The whole Family/C Street deal is cosmically spooky. These guys have adopted the same sort of morality is for others; we're the elect line that's typical of cults.
Posted by: Alverant | July 17, 2009 10:25 AM
Christians admit they're not perfect. But these guys are falling way too short of the standards they set for others. They should quit trying to dictate how others should live and try cleaning up their own act. The virtuous man teaches by example.
Posted by: jimmiraybob | July 17, 2009 10:33 AM
"...he turned to "C Street" for counsel and solace while having the affair."
Translation: ...he would play poker and swill scotch with the boys on Friday night and they'd all swap stories about their latest conquests. Every third Friday was dick-measuring and fart lighting night.
Soon as these boys get out of high school they'll...what's that? Congressmen? Never mind.
Posted by: pacoyogi
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July 17, 2009 10:33 AM
Rey @ 8 & 18
I prefer the term "frat church."
As in, Pickering, Ensign, and Sanford are all members of this frat church, which pays no taxes.
C Street Bordello is good, too.
Posted by: Bren | July 17, 2009 10:35 AM
According to an interview on Rachel Maddow last night, members of this organisation see themselves as God's chosen, and thus above morality. Apparently this bunch of Christians believe morality is a 'secular construct'. How weird is that?
Posted by: Bitchfinder General | July 17, 2009 10:38 AM
@jimmiraybob
Actually, the theology of the Family (so I understand) is that the members hold themselves accountable to each other before they hold themselves accountable to their electorate and give each other veto power over each others personal and professional lives. Essentially, the Family runs and operates these guys and to hell with the electorate they are supposed to represent. Basically, what Bill Dauphin says, above.
Posted by: Matt | July 17, 2009 10:50 AM
The latest "Reasonable Doubts" podcast had a bunch of really interesting information about The Family, and their theology and their politics.
It sheds a lot of light on their behaviour, and makes all these sex scandals not particularly surprising.
Posted by: DLC | July 17, 2009 10:51 AM
Power is one of the biggest aphrodisiacs ever.
Washington DC is the center of American political power.
It's really that simple. These men went to DC, started getting treated like royalty, with people deferring to them and catering to their whims, and it brought out their inner hedonist. This does not really surprise me. It also does not surprise me that, having used "moral superiority" as a weapon to gain power, they should now be hoist on their own petard.
Having "outed" themselves as hypocrites, they deserve whatever condemnation their constituents (and the rest of the nation) heaps on them.
Posted by: Guy Incognito | July 17, 2009 10:56 AM
Reminds me of basic training. My fellow trainees swore up and down the drill sergeants were putting saltpeter in our water to kill our sex drives. If it wasn't total bunk, I would suggest the same for these fuckers.
Posted by: Notagod | July 17, 2009 10:59 AM
There is one thing most christians have been forced to admit as knowledge has shown a light on their holy bible, it can't be taken literally. So yeah, all manner of crime is typical of a real and good christian. Christians are required to be deceptive, it is the nature of their god idea.
Posted by: Josh | July 17, 2009 11:04 AM
It was a thriving rumor when I went through, as well. I'm pretty sure it was bullshit.
Posted by: BlueIndependent
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July 17, 2009 11:21 AM
This Family and the C St. house are another example of the true intent of the ultra-right in this country. It's been reported in a book now out by Jeff Sharlet (who was on Rachel Maddow's show last week I think) that this Family teaches its members that they are special humans annointed by, of course, God, and that they are not bound by the same moral codes as society because members are said to be above it all (essentially meaning above the laws that govern lesser men). The Family has a distinct American imperialist view of the world (think hyper-neocon), and sees all aspects of life as being maleable to the influence and pursuit of religion (theirs of course).
That elected officials in the highest house in the land are a part of this sham is truly troubling, and my sincere wonder is how this group meshes with the ultra-right factions in the military. These people would stage a coup in a heartbeat if given the opportunity.
Posted by: raven | July 17, 2009 11:21 AM
Just another example that xian morality is a myth.
While xians are no better than anyone else and many are far worse than the norm, they do show some outstanding characteristics.
They excel at hypocrisy and lying.
Posted by: Happy | July 17, 2009 11:30 AM
While were on the topic of full of shit conservatives...
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25073.html
Posted by: raven | July 17, 2009 11:31 AM
The C street rat's nest of xian fundie politicians reminds me of a certain city in Star Wars. C street=Mos Eisley of Family Values xians.
Obi-wan Kenobi: Mos Eisley spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.
Posted by: carey | July 17, 2009 11:31 AM
I have known some real sleaze-buckets, but the worst were those who crowed that they were not perfect, simply forgiven. Mouthing a few words shielded them from moral considerations.
Posted by: Lynna | July 17, 2009 11:40 AM
Yay! This is actually good news, sort of, because the hypocrites have been well and truly outed. Rachel Maddow deserves a lot of credit for presenting this story well.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#31952963
The "church" was also apparently used for sleepovers with mistresses. At least Congressman Pickering's wife claimed that when she filed for divorce.
Love the bit about members of "The Family" advising one guy that, yes, his wife could be demonically possessed if she claimed to be unsatisfied sexually by hubby.
Get these guys out of the halls of power.
Posted by: jr smoltz | July 17, 2009 11:41 AM
Well, among other pharmaceuticals, viagra has been found in the DC tap water. But all of us here are drinking it, not just C Street.
Posted by: raven | July 17, 2009 11:48 AM
Most xians would consider that heresy by a False Prophet. How do they know that they are immune from the usual laws and commandments? The usual I suppose, voices in somebody's head.
False Prophets were and are common. Since in xian mythology, god is the ultimate power being, anyone and everyone was and is always claiming to act as his agent. So common that the OT has a procedure for dealing with them. They are to be put to death by stoning. In the fundie xian's silly theocracy, C street and its residents would have long ago been buried in boulders.
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | July 17, 2009 11:55 AM
There is a house in Washington
They call the C Street House...
And it's been the ruin of many a Christian man
Who cheated on his spouse.
[/Animals]
Posted by: withheld | July 17, 2009 12:06 PM
Thanks, Cuttlefish. Now I'll have that chord progression in my head all day.
Posted by: James F | July 17, 2009 12:08 PM
#46
*busts out the Hammond*
More, more!
Posted by: pdferguson
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July 17, 2009 12:09 PM
It's great to see the bright light of public scrutiny turned on this secretive organization. I am looking forward to reading Sharlet's book, having heard him speak recently on Rachel Maddow's show and on Fresh Air.
Posted by: daveau
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July 17, 2009 12:12 PM
Cuttlefish-
You make it look so easy...
You're missing out if you've never heard the Frijid Pink version.
Posted by: MikeTheInfidel | July 17, 2009 12:26 PM
For all the information you ever wanted about The Family and more, read the Wikipedia article about the Children of God cult (which is now The Family).
These are some seriously creepy folks, known largely for their use of PROMISCUOUS SEX as a proselytization tool back in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. They also have a jaw-dropping history of child sexual abuse:
Posted by: Sastra
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July 17, 2009 12:28 PM
Blue Independent #38 wrote:
If they've been that explicit with themselves, that surprises me a bit. I think there is usually a sort of "the greater the sin, the greater the repentance" rationale at work in cases like this. Christian theology can be easily worked to turn moral backsliding into confirmation of God's existence, God's goodness, and the sinner's significance in the great scheme of things.
"There is more rejoicing over the return of one lost sheep, than over those who never strayed." If you're important, then you're going to stray. Otherwise, the Grand Cosmic Plot of Religion isn't going to spend much time on you. And who the hell wants to be a minor character in a life with so little drama that God can take you for granted -- and vice versa?
Posted by: Onkel Bob | July 17, 2009 12:30 PM
I posted on that silly Isis thread that Jebus doesn't make on a bad scientist per se, but Jebus does seem to make bad people. It was a rhetorical response to a rhetorical argument and roundly denounced as lacking evidence. When listening to Sharlet yesterday and the idea came out that the C-Streeter's were only accountable to each other, not to their constituents, well so much for lacking evidence. Christian mafia indeed...
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | July 17, 2009 12:34 PM
Is it the same "The Family"? I thought the same thing when I heard the name in the news but I think it's a coincidence.
Still crazy religious group but not the same crazy religious group
*i didn't read the whole wiki on it.
Posted by: MikeTheInfidel | July 17, 2009 12:36 PM
Yes, it's the same The Family. They call themselves The Family International now.
Posted by: tim Rowledge | July 17, 2009 12:37 PM
Silly fellows - bullshit in the water would give you dysentry or some similar condition. Hmm, mind you, that would be pretty much guaranteed to reduce your sex drive at the same time. Not so good for operational readiness though.
Posted by: MikeTheInfidel | July 17, 2009 12:41 PM
OK, no it's not. Never mind. I'm reading more about it now... it's older than TFI or COG.
Posted by: soboco | July 17, 2009 12:46 PM
Pickering was the Senator that addressed the Pentecostal revival in the movie Borat. In the scene he told the rollers that the US is now and always been and always will be a Christian nation. What a hoot!
Posted by: Josh | July 17, 2009 12:48 PM
Priceless. I owe you a beer for that one.
Posted by: raven | July 17, 2009 1:06 PM
There are tons of hard, cold statistical facts that say that fundies are no better than normal people (by their own criteria) and frequently worse. Fundies have higher rates of divorce and religious school graduates have higher rates of abortion than the general population. Red states are leaders in social problems like teen age pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse, child poverty, poor education, and on and on.
Thems the data.
It is also anecdotally the case. We are always hearing about faith healing cults that kill their kids, fundie cult politicians hiking the Appalachian trail in Argentina with their girl friend, scamming money one way or another, and occasionally assassinating someone they don't like. And of course, the endless lies of the antiscience creationist crowd and the xian Dominionist, We are a xian nation theocrats.
Xian morality is a myth.
Posted by: TheEngima23 | July 17, 2009 1:09 PM
Greg Laden posted something about this on his blog yesterday, complete with a video:
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2009/07/mafia-like_family_runs_republi.php
It's scary stuff if you think about it.
Posted by: Notagod | July 17, 2009 1:12 PM
However, christians have partaken so often that they have developed an immunity to the physical ailments and their brains have been conditioned to absorb the stuff.
Posted by: SEF | July 17, 2009 1:29 PM
@ #46:
I was thinking more in terms of the appropriateness of "Easy Street" from Annie. Only a few minor modifications to the lyrics would be necessary. Eg: "On C Street ...".
Posted by: C. M. Baxter | July 17, 2009 1:36 PM
I’ve read that The Family also has a women’s charter. For the most part, however, the women seem to have been relegated to the status of cooks, servers and house-maids for the men. Oh, how I would love to see this nest of roaches exposed and publicly censured in a most unflattering way!
Posted by: gaypaganunitarianagnostic | July 17, 2009 1:40 PM
When I was in college a friend said there was saltpeter in the salt shakers of the lunchrooms. I shook out some salt and stuck in a match - no reaction. I also pointed out there were married students and that if the college interfered with their connubial bliss, it could be sued to the ground.
Posted by: Doug Little | July 17, 2009 1:47 PM
Doesn't Johnny Depp live there? ....
Oh what's that, 21 Jump Steet you say.... Never mind carry on.
But seriously ever since this broke I cant get that damn 21 Jump St jingle outta my brain. Somebody kill me now... please.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | July 17, 2009 1:50 PM
Sastra:
It's not so much that they've fessed up publicly, but that Sharlet apparently infiltrated the group and thus got access to their private, unfiltered thoughts.
I gather from Sharlet (based on his several recent appearanced with Maddow, that is; I haven't yet read his book) that they're not much bothered about conventional notions of "sin." They see themselves as God's elect, and as someone else has already commented, they see conventional morality as a secular construct. It's not that they encourage "sin"; it's just that they don't see it as any particular impediment to, or disqualifier from, doing God's work.
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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July 17, 2009 2:01 PM
See, this is why I just don't bother with pants.
Posted by: robotaholic
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July 17, 2009 2:08 PM
haaaaaaaaa, haaaaaaa!!- one of the cheaters was a 'promise keeper' - hypocracy is astounding- fuck those assholes- atheists don't claim to have any special track to the Almighty Morality Arbiter like they do and then they cheat and lie...arggghhh
Posted by: Kagehi | July 17, 2009 2:08 PM
Unless I am mistaken, saltpeter is actually used in making corned beef. Its been used for centuries as a preservative in such meats, without seeming to have much of an effect at all on the libidos of all of people eating the result. No idea where the idea that it was an anaphrodisiac came about, but it had to have been some time in the last few centuries, possibly even more recent, such as when we invented canning and stopped using preservation so much in meat products.
That said.. Something really needs to be done about these kinds of nut cases, especially in the context of them ignoring the very principles they want the rest of us to bend over backwards to follow, whether sane or not.
Posted by: clausentum
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July 17, 2009 2:11 PM
But the left-wing is also in denial on its own pet themes, witness the recent attempt of the BBC to suppress the latest findings on the effect of the break-up of marriages on the kids.
For this just Google "broken families children": some of the sources may not be politically correct for you guys, but the evidence is overwhelming.
This, of course, doesn't excuse the hypocrisy, and I have no answer to these problems, but just advocating feral sex for anyone anytime is not going to help.
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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July 17, 2009 2:16 PM
@clausentum: Perhaps you can refresh my memory. When did anybody start claiming that broken marriages don't have bad consequences for children?
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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July 17, 2009 2:24 PM
I really must know where you go to socialize. It sounds like an 80s teen sex comedy, not a forum where people have serious discussions about relationships.
Posted by: raven | July 17, 2009 2:25 PM
and
While you are at it, also explain who is advocating "feral sex for anyone anytime". I must have missed it.
Clausentum is a cold blooded murderer. He set up two strawmen and then killed them. Won't anyone think of those poor, dead strawpeople?
Posted by: Molly, NYC | July 17, 2009 2:33 PM
I think it's worth noting that these guys are acting within utterly normal--hell, banal--limits. It's unremarkable that in a population of men (or women, for that matter) who are living away from (or even with) their spouses, a certain number will be having some sort of sex with persons to whom they are not married, in various too-wonderful-to-describe-here positions, for purposes other than reproduction.
What's jaw-dropping is their inability to see this--even the ones who are doing it (1)--and by extension, their drooling obsession with sticking their noses in everyone else's bedrooms.
This is what comes of internalizing abstinence ed, Folks, whether it comes from school, Sunday school, your family or the Family: Instead of dealing with sex like a normal person, you start getting excited by attempts to micromanage--in all the steamy, throbbing details--the sex lives of others. You vote for (or become) politicians who essentially insist (although not in so many words) that everyone reserve that part of their lives for baby-making, full stop, and that billions in tax dollars and other government resources be wasted in enforcing this POV.
(1) E.g., Governor Sanford's seemingly endless attempts to rationalize his trip to Argentina--Dude, we get it. Really, the grown-ups all do. Please shut up.
Posted by: clausentum
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July 17, 2009 2:53 PM
Naked Bunny with a Whip, raven :
I find you disingenuous: you will nowhere on this blog find a balanced discussion on points like this, and the whole purport (if, admittedly, by omission very often) is to appear to be in favour of "anything goes".
I'm not sure if I'd not prefer the attitude of the "hypocrites" to your stance: they at least have stood up for something, even if in the end they couldn't meet the standards which they, perhaps sincerely, thought were the right ones.
PS: the evidence dropped into my lap with Molly #75
Posted by: CatBallou
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July 17, 2009 3:30 PM
Maybe Clausentum is referring to the decades-old notion that staying married "for the sake of the children" benefits no one, and that children of divorced parents fare better than children of married-but-miserable parents. I'm guessing that different studies have different results, depending on the criteria used to evaluate the children's welfare.
But I don't think Molly was endorsing an "anything goes" attitude in #75; she was merely pointing out that some behaviors are inevitable, given a large enough pool. Murder, theft, etc. are also inevitable to some extent, but pointing that out isn't condoning it.
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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July 17, 2009 3:45 PM
Thank you for the clarification. Your bizarre twisting of Molly's post into "advocating feral sex for anyone anytime" tells me that I can ignore any other interpretation of what others say as utterly unreliable. If you have any point to make, please post links to your sources for confirmation.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | July 17, 2009 3:51 PM
clausentum:
Well, I find you supercilious. Perhaps NBWaW and raven find you obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant, as well.
Hmmm... in my (fairly lengthy) experience here, there has always been a reasonably broad diversity of opinions on most topics, but if by "balanced discussion" you mean the sort of false equivalency we've been seeing in the so-called mainstream media in recent years, then you're right, you won't see much of that here. This blog community has an unapologetic bias in favor of rational ideas.
I don't think you can really find any large constituency here arguing "in favour of 'anything goes'," though I could see where someone coming from a particular point of view might see it that way. This is an avowedly liberal and atheist blog (see the subheading at the top of the page), and the majority of us in the commenter community are at least sympathetic to liberalism and atheism, if not liberals and atheists ourselves. Now add to those basic facts the notion, cogently argued here on more than one occasion, that "traditional" conservative sexual mores are fundamentally religious in nature, and thus you can see why the narrow man-on-top-get-it-over-with-quick version of sexuality is less than compelling to many of us godless libruhls.
So it's not that anyone here (anyone I can recall, that is) promotes oath-breaking, or lying to one's partner — the sorts of things that lead to "broken families," and that would be misconduct even if they had nothing to do with sex — but more that many of us affirmatively believe that sexuality is natural and good and shouldn't be hemmed around with bogus superstitious rules, including especially the idea that the only legitimate was to express one's sexuality is within a single specific, narrowly defined, oathbound relationship. It's the artificiality and irrationality of the boundaries we put on sexuality, rather than anything inherently bad about sex per se, that drives the bad behavior that's got you so bugged; a culture of greater sexual openness would have less FUD — and quite likely fewer "broken families" — than our current god-soaked world now endures.
So folks here don't advocate anything goes, but rather anything responsible goes, where responsible implies respect, mutual consent, and honesty... but not necessarily ritually sanctioned lifelong heterosexual monogamy. You may want to call that "feral sex"; I call it essentially human.
PS: I've just celebrated the 25th anniversary of my very vanilla marriage, so my position on this issue can't be written off as the disingenuous self-justifications of a pervert.
Posted by: Doug Little | July 17, 2009 3:53 PM
@clausentum
What has that got to do with the hypocrisy of the C-Street band?
Where is your evidence that the BBC tried to suppress anything?
Posted by: Tulse | July 17, 2009 3:55 PM
Right, on the blog of a man who has been married over two decades to the same woman.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | July 17, 2009 4:02 PM
The you really aren't very good at examining "evidence"
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | July 17, 2009 4:04 PM
then
Posted by: Glazius | July 17, 2009 4:06 PM
Well, it's pretty simple. Y'all are at least passingly familiar with the legend of King David, right? Saw a woman taking a bath, ordered her husband into battle alone, "comforted" her in her loss?
This is the line on C Street - that isn't a story about how even the people in power can fall to the basest temptations, it's a story about the kinds of things God will let you get away with when you're in power.
Good ol' prosperity gospel.
Posted by: loulou | July 17, 2009 4:19 PM
the worst thing is what the MS courts did to the wife, made her return her evidence and wouldn't let her have a continuance to seek a new attorney when hers withdrew. I think the congressman's daddy was manipulating the courts. Remember the Judge Pickering??? The wife had to try to represent herself against Pickerings 5 lawyers. What kind of deal is that?
Posted by: Foggg | July 17, 2009 4:44 PM
"Balanced discussion" ala wingnut: either 1692 Massachusetts or feral sex among 4th graders. Your choice.
And in references to wingnut 'hypocrites', always employ quotes.
Posted by: clausentum
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July 17, 2009 4:49 PM
Doug Little #80
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1198962/Yes-family-breakdown-IS-broken-Britain-Top-judge-says-national-tragedy-attacks-BBC-suppressing-debate.html
The next time someone asks me "what is 'Schadenfreude'" I shall give them a link to this thread. The foaming-over glee at the guy's discomfiture speaks volumes for the real attitude of the people round here to these problems - a genuine concern for those hit by the break-up of marriage would have manifested itself differently.
Posted by: Jason Blitz | July 17, 2009 4:50 PM
I'm sure religious conservatives thought that in "The Handmaid's Tale", Margaret Atwood was being unrealistic about the impious behavior of the publicly pious, but she wasn't off the mark, was she?
Posted by: Kitecraft | July 17, 2009 4:51 PM
It's not the water in the building, it's the owners of the building:
Quote:
"Loren Cunningham is credited as one of three evangelists who supposedly received the Seven Mountains idea as a vision from God. Cunningham is founder of the global evangelizing organization Youth With a Mission, which owns the increasingly notorious "C Street House" where GOP Senators John Ensign and Tom Coburn enjoy cut-rate rent and Bible classes, and swap personal secrets such as news of Ensign's recently disclosed extramarital affair."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-wilson/palin-attended-church-eve_b_237740.html
Posted by: CatBallou
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July 17, 2009 5:13 PM
Clausentum, I dare say that many of the posters here are intimately and personally aware of the pain or at least difficulty inherent in the breakup of a marriage. I haven't read any postings suggesting that divorce is easy, or that infidelity is "no big deal."
Please try to focus on the actual point of this posting, which is to call attention to the massive hypocrisy demonstrated by these self-appointed moral guardians. I have absolutely no sympathy for them, and boundless sympathy for the people they have hurt.
Posted by: Doug Little | July 17, 2009 5:21 PM
@clausentum
Glad to see your still here. Now on to business
So by suppression you mean that they gave it an unfavorable time to be aired?
Sir Paul Coleridge must be a mind reader then because he somehow knows what the TV execs are thinking.
Oh noes its all a conspiracy the main stream media is trying to suppress me!
Posted by: Monado, FCD | July 17, 2009 5:35 PM
Same shit, different year: "Rules are for you little people."
"The Bordello of C Street" has a better ring to it, but calling the building that is an insult to honest whorehouses. How about "The C Street Frat House"?
Posted by: lockewasright | July 17, 2009 5:43 PM
These people can behave as hypocritically as they want and will not ever be made to pay a price in their political careers because voters who wish to see their evangelical christian views codified into law (Talibangelicals as I call them) will continue to turn a blind eye to the hypocrisy so long as the politician continues to represent his or herself as someone who will try and create bible based law.
Posted by: James F | July 17, 2009 5:44 PM
I think it would be funny if The Family were the same as Society.
Posted by: clausentum
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July 17, 2009 5:45 PM
Doug Little #91 -
not sure if I understand your point: the BBC clearly found the programme not to their liking and would have suppressed it completely if they had thought they could get away with it - so they tried to marginalize it.
The sun is long down over Europe so I really am signing off now...
regards
Posted by: lockewasright | July 17, 2009 6:05 PM
The poor ethics are what causes these people to embrace rabid christianity. It allows them to claim piety so that they can feel superior to someone else. It soothes their conscience to feel not as bad as someone else and it is much easier than truthful introspection or working on actually being a better person. It's the same thing that draws people to the Klan. They have simply stopped burning the cross on the lawn and hung it on the wall instead as if that makes their intollerance and bigotry any less contrary to the american concept of equality.
Posted by: OurDeadSelves | July 17, 2009 6:43 PM
... South Carolina Republican Gov. Mark Sanford admitted an affair with a woman in Argentina. He apparently never lived in the house, but has said he turned to "C Street" for counsel and solace while having the affair.
Awe come on guys! You're just being big meanies to these poor, inconsolable men! They're obviously all torn up about their salacious extra-marital affairs!
[/sarcasm]
Posted by: 'Tis Himself
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July 17, 2009 7:15 PM
Our boy clausentum certainly doesn't know how TV programs get aired. If network executives don't want a program to be seen, it won't be seen. They can show the schedule is tied up for the next nine months, the producers of the program are demanding too much money, demographics show that kind of program isn't watched, etc., etc., etc.
Posted by: foxfire | July 17, 2009 8:40 PM
"Our boy clausentum certainly" seems quite devoted to hijacking this thread and redirecting the conversation.
If you have not read "The Family" you might want to do so, as others have recommended above. I read it last year and it scared the shit out of me, after I did a bit of googling.
Take that irritating National Prayer Breakfast. Do da link and see how it came to be. Doug Coe? Do da google and old Dougie apparently has quite a history.
Scary. Funny NOT.
Posted by: raven | July 17, 2009 9:16 PM
I find you stupid, crazy, a liar, and just plain evil.* In short a typical fundie xian.
You threadjacked the post which was about how evil and hypocritical the Death Cult leadership is. Made some totally false accusations, When caught, you did some name calling.
You are done here. Do the cornered xian fundie Rat Dance. Tell eveyone they are going to hell, drop some vague or not so vague death threats, and join your other hypocritical friends in destroying any credibility the xian religion had.
*You are also a serial killer of strawmen. What in the hell is it with you cultists and violence, lies, hate and murder?
Posted by: raven | July 17, 2009 9:31 PM
Molly said nothing about "feral sex anybody anytime" nor did she say anything about divorced families being desirable.
You lied. When caught, you did the xian fundie Rat Dance i.e. you lied again. I'm sure you will just lie constantly through your life and then one day you will be dead.
Xian morality is a myth. Xians like you prove it everyday.
Posted by: raven | July 17, 2009 9:40 PM
Well gee, clausentum can't even get his lies straight. Fundie xians in the USA have divorce rates a lot higher than either the national average or normal people. Just a fact from statistical surveys. Social ills are also higher in fundie areas, again facts from statistics.
If clausentum really wanted to reduce social ills, the obvious solution would be to reduce the number of minds trapped by malevolent, poisonous fundie death cults. Of course for him to see this, he would first have to take his head out of his oh so holy rear end, look reality in the face, and try to tell the truth once or twice. Won't happen.
Posted by: ProudCynic | July 17, 2009 10:03 PM
This comment has probably been repeated somewhere further up the thread (possibly by myself, but it seems the servers have swallowed my comment at the time of posting) but I'm going to say it anyway...
Does anyone else find it strange that a bunch of conservative Christian men, all strong opponents of homosexuality and with a history of infidelity, are all bunking in the same house?
Posted by: foxfire | July 17, 2009 10:48 PM
ProudCynic #103
Strange? Nah...significant perhaps, sex and power being so intertwined in many cases. I would hate to see this situation "framed" as an example of "closet homosexuality" and I do NOT think you are attempting to do any framing. I DO think your valid question could lead to a charge in the wrong direction.
I think this fricking cult is all about control and power, where sex is a demonstration of that power/control, as opposed to situations where sex is an expression of love, caring and/or sharing pleasure .
P.S. @raven: would you please quit feeding that idiotic troll!
Posted by: ursulamajor | July 17, 2009 11:31 PM
The whole time I was listening to the Maddow Show about "The Family", I kept thinking about all the sci-fi stories I've read through the years warning of the hidden groups of people that REALLY run the world. These guys aren't, but they seem to think they are. I hope that this exposure breaks the whole thing down.
I call, "Danger, Will Robinson!"
Posted by: lockewasright | July 18, 2009 12:22 AM
@ursulamajor
Wasn't Patrick Buchanan infuriating on Maddow?! I wanted to kick my television.
Sorry, that was off topic. He just made me so mad!
Posted by: ProudCynic | July 18, 2009 1:04 AM
@104: No, it's not framing any sort of question. Just a mean-spirited, childish joke at a bunch of hypocritical asshats is all.
Posted by: SEF | July 18, 2009 5:09 AM
Eg "Popetown":
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/3684464.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popetown
Posted by: clausentum
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July 18, 2009 8:47 AM
raven :
wow - bet your screen needed a good wiping off after you'd finished.
Just one point: how do you conclude I'm a Xian? If you're not right, are you a simple liar or what would the pharyngulite terminology for liar-to-the-power-two be?
SEF #108 : or if they realise they've been caught out, and how embarassing it's going to be, they screen it later.
Posted by: Mike Licht | July 18, 2009 9:30 AM
There's nothing sinister about the C Street Fellowship. The group just believes that "love thy neighbor" trumps the Ten Commandments if you're rich, white, male and Republican.
See:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/07/18/c-street-sex-scandal
Posted by: raven | July 18, 2009 10:02 AM
You are a pathological liar, crazy, a serial killer (of strawmen) defending toadlike humanoids called fundie xian politicians. Pretty much describes a lot of fundie cultists. If I'm wrong, I'm not lying, I'm just wrong. Since you are a compulsive liar, anything you say is not to be believed automatically.
You are also trolling and lying. This is boring. Lie away little toad. Everyone knows what you are, what you are doing, and it is a worthless waste of time.
It terms of social ills, wacko clausential trolls with personality problems and toxic religion are both parts of the problem, not the solution.
Posted by: Steven Dunlap | July 18, 2009 11:17 AM
The Daily Mail article is a howler. It reads as one long editorial presenting little evidence to verify blaming all society's (or Britain's society's) ills on "family breakdown" with pictures of white middle class happy families. These kinds of screeds fail to account for certain causal relationships: marriages that last do so because the couples who stay married are happy together, not that the ritual and "bonds of marriage" work some sort of woo woo magic on them. If unhappily married couples were forced (as they used to be) to stay married by legal, economic and/or social forces, then the children could endure even worse conditions. The sort of people who experience difficulty with long-term relationships may also have less than stellar parenting skills. The breakups of the parents and the children with troubles both most likely result from the personalities of the parents, and "keeping families together" does not then magically turn them all into the idealized fantasy families you see in the pictures in the Daily Mail screed. Xian trolls often experience difficulties with cause and effect relationships.
And Snopes has a page about the saltpeter myth. And yes, it's used in curing corned beef.
Posted by: Ed Darrell | July 18, 2009 12:57 PM
It's not in the water, it's in our (figurative) stars.
Psychologist P. W. Buffington notes the phenomenon in which seemingly and self-professed moral people sin greatly. Buffington's Law: The straighter the arrow, the bigger the kink.
I suspect we'll eventually learn that there is a sort of biological/psychological equilibrium, and if someone tilts too far to one side in the appearance of morality, to stay standing up, they must tilt the other way awfully hard, and often hoping to keep that rebalancing secret from everyone else. And I'm looking for funding for the study -- do you think I can find funding on C Street?
Posted by: Lynna | July 18, 2009 1:13 PM
Aren't the C Street folks the same group that organized efforts to place only born again Christians as aides to Senators and Congressmen? Maybe that was K Street? Gotta be a connection there.
I'm reminded of the "My Abortion is the Only Moral Abortion" people. My affair, my mistress, my lies are the only ones planned by, and approved by, then forgiven by, God Himself.
Posted by: clausentum
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July 18, 2009 1:38 PM
pharyngula style:
raven-the-convicted-liar,
I'm sure glad there's an awful lot of landline between you and me, because if your real persona corresponds even only mildly with your web-presence, I wouldn't give myself much chance down a dark alley with you.
Your thuggishness and mouth-foaming ranting gives atheists a bad name, and all this bluster makes it looks as though you feel you've lost on the substance....
and to my last point you haven't responded: how do you conclude I'm a christian?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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July 18, 2009 1:45 PM
Clausentum, your idiocy you show every time you post gives you and your ideas a bad name. The first rule of holes, is when in over your head, stop digging. You need to stop digging (posting), as you are in over your head.
Posted by: clausentum
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July 18, 2009 3:02 PM
Nerd -
I'd like to say the content of your note is as bad as its grammar (your idiocy you show), but since your note has zero content that's not possible.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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July 18, 2009 3:09 PM
Don't worry, you still show your ignorance, due to lack of content and even your posting here. You are in over your head. Time to show some intelligence and go elsewhere. But then, you aren't smart enough to recognize that.
Posted by: clausentum
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July 18, 2009 3:19 PM
Wow - how are the mighty fallen: this puts a very poor light on pharyngula: when you've roundly lost on the substance you ask the other guy to go.
Call it game,set and match?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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July 18, 2009 3:22 PM
No, you lost before you even showed up. Just like any other person who accepts anything on faith, religious and/or political, rather than by evidence.
Posted by: Lynna | August 4, 2009 2:46 PM
Doonesbury has a good cartoon about C Street:
http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html
Posted by: Bill Klee | August 9, 2009 1:27 PM
This clausentum is a near-perfect example of what I call "the hobby-horse troll." Standard technique of the hobby-horse troll is to jump into a discussion about something and claim, "You can't bad-mouth these people because you aren't bad-mouthing those people."
In other words, they ignore that most people generally follow one topic at a time. Just because you're not talking about the hobby-horse's pet topic now does not mean you don't think it's totally ignorable. The topic, that is - hobby-horse trolls are entirely ignorable.
It was, I think, most classically seen on alt.atheism, back when the extent of the clerical child-abuse problem was coming to light. Whenever someone would say bad things about clerics, people who are not only in a position of power and trust, but claim to get their instruction from the creator of the universe, a hobby-horse troll would pop up and say, in short, "you can't bad-mouth priests of child-molestation, because you're not bad-mouthing teachers of it." He ignored, of course that when a teacher is guilty of, or even accused of child-molestation, that teacher is immediately removed from his/her position, pending investigation. Should that teacher be found guilty, prison time. However, when a priest/preacher/etc is found guilty or accused of child-molestation, the church would move the priest to a new location, with fresh, new children to molest.
clausentum is, for all intents and purposes, exactly the same. "You can't bad-mouth these assholes on C-Street, because you're not bad-mouthing those assholes on the BBC," to boil his "argument" down to basics.
clausentum, you are a hobby-horse troll.
Posted by: Curly Surmudgeon | August 17, 2009 4:08 PM
I expect the weird from crazymotherfuckers. They believe that snakes talk so how can hypocrisy compete?
What is scary is that this secretive cult of wackos are part of the Federal Government deciding the fate of each and every one of us.
Posted by: carrepossesseion | September 15, 2009 4:05 AM
ohh...nice post but really?/? :P