the jesus party and values for thee, not for me

listening to the radio yesterday, i heard some interviewees talking about the horrid newt gingrich. they were being asked something along the lines of "how can you, as a conservative, vote for someone who was having an affair while impeaching the president for having an affair? doesn't the immorality and hypocrisy make your head explode and thus render you physically incapable of voting?"

the answer was typical: the poll-ee said that she was pretty sure the execrable newt gingrich had repented to jesus for his sins, and she was pretty sure he did it authentically, and she was pretty sure jesus forgave him, and thus, he had a clean bill of spiritual jesus health and moral authority to run for president of the Conservative States of America.

this is the problem with the forgiveness myth: a person of obvious moral ineptitude can run on a platform of morals quite easily. in fact, the more turpitude in their past, the better. all they have to do is get the voters to believe that they sincerely "came to jesus", and not only does this anoint them in sinlessness, it grants them an even higher moral high ground -- after all, like all of us, they're just a poor sinner, only they've found the path to righteousness and can lead us there, too.

it's all nonsense, of course, especially in the case of the hideous newt gingrich. there's no evidence whatever that he's particularly christian. he certainly doesn't love his neighbor (willard mitt romney, for example) as he loves himself. his second ex-wife (have to be specific, mister family values the repugnant newt gingrich had a bunch of them) is now explaining that he asked for an open marriage, just like jesus and the pope had. classy!

but even though the intolerable newt gingrich himself isn't particularly running as a jesus candidate, his supporters, being nominally jesus followers (until faced with the prospect of applying the Golden Rule, of course. after all, Jesus himself said to Paul, "nuke Iran, slaughter their children, and make war on their homes") simply presuppose since they are going to vote anyway for whomever they've managed to randomly pick, such candidate must be a devout christian, just like them. projection, in other words. you pick a candidate that you like for whatever reason, then project your values on to them, then vote for them. anyone who has paid attention to the left blogosphere in the past four years will recognize this pattern.

but the danger with this pattern is that it is totally permissive. it allows behavior of any kind.

there is only one jesus candidate, and as much as i dislike him in every way, santorum appears to live what he believes. there's no need to project religious adherence on to him, he seems like the real deal (of course, that's probably just image management and if he gets to the general we'll be treated to the gay sex tape). but my point is simple: if morals and values are really important to you (and if they're not, why are you voting GOP?), then the herpetic serial-philandering but presumably forgiven newt gingrich is too complicated of a choice. why not keep it simple and cheer for the frothy mixture, who has nothing to apoligize for, no need for forgiveness?

after all, jesus himself was born without sin. he lived without sin. if you're so big on jesus, why follow a monster like the squamous horror newt gingrich? jesus defined a set of values, not economic or foreign policy principles. if jesus is a big in your life as you say he is, shouldn't you pick a candidate based on his similarity to the sinless so no-need-for-forgiveness jesus?

the answer is no, because the sort of people who would vote for the reptillian newt gingrich aren't actually christians any more than their candidate is. they just need some way to justify their voting habits within the framework of their socially-mandated religion. just like the disgraced speaker likely needs some bullshit self-justification for why it was okay for him to cheat on his wife while impeaching the president for cheating on his wife, the rubes who vote for him need to believe he was forgiven, so they can vote for him and still consider themselves good people.