Adultery!

Anyone remember Allan Turner Howe?

Worked for Senator Frank Moss and Governor Cal Rampton? Served as Utah's Representative to the U.S. House from 1975-1977?

Got caught soliciting an undercover cop posing as a prostitute in Salt Lake City in 1976....


How about James Vear Hansen?


Insurance and real estate businessman? Served as Utah's Representative to the U.S. House from 1981-2002? Namesake of both Highway 89 and the federal building in Ogden?

Kept a mistress during his time in Congress....


Shoot, let's not forget confessed adulterer, former stake president, excommunicated Mormon, and former Speaker of the Utah House of Representatives Melvin R. Brown.



Or prostitute solicitors Calvin Bird (caught offering $40 to a female undercover cop posing as a prostitute).
.


Or Brent Parker (caught offering $20 to a MALE undercover cop posing as a prostitute).



Or, (going back old school) serial adulterer Arthur Brown.


Or, in the name of equal opportunity, caught-on-camera adulteress Katherine Bryson.



Am I taking cheap shots? Well, probably. But no one is going to tell me that Jim Hansen and Mel Brown aren't guilty of taking a few of their own from time to time. I mean, I admit I was serving an LDS mission during the peak of the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal, but I don't believe there was a Republican in the state of Utah, including those listed above, who didn't line up to cast stones at the man from Arkansas (yeah, yeah, I know, Allan Howe was a Democrat, and I do believe he didn't say anything about Bill's adultery).

What gets me is how some of these creeps fly under the radar and don't get exposed publicly (a la Jim Hansen), while some get caught and roundly driven out of their party (a la Allan Howe), how some of them get caught and still manage to keep getting elected (seriously, Mel Brown GETS EXCOMMUNICATED from the LDS Church, and still gets re-elected to the Utah House), and, of course, how any political party can stand up and get away with claiming to be the "party of family values."

While I suppose there are plenty of folks who were virgins when they married and have remained absolutely faithful in marriage, or have never married and remained celibate, or have even remained celibate (or married) and never masturbated (well....), humans are sexual (regardless of what Richard G. Scott or Julie Beck may claim). No one should be really surprised when they hear that their elected official, or neighbor, or spouse has had an affair, or viewed pornography, or masturbated, or had a sexual partner (or series of sexual partners) in high school or college.

The same Jesus who proclaimed that "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" also defended the woman caught in adultery by cautioning "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." Of course, Jesus also took every opportunity to condemn hypocrisy, more forcibly and frequently than he ever condemned sexual sin.

Which is a large part of what prompted me to scribble this note. I'd certainly like to condemn adultery. It's an awful offense against your spouse and children. I'd like to mourn with those who mourn in repentance after committing adultery (and no, that doesn't include Mel Brown who married his mistress, or Mark Sanford who compared himself to King David). I'm even more keen on calling out hypocrisy.

But what I really want (and because I see so little of it here in Utah and in the church of my youth) is more sorrow for sin, more humble repentance, more compassion for the sinner, and, if nothing else, less hypocrisy.