Would you vote for a candidate who espouses different values in their personal life than they do in their politics?

Nope. I wouldn’t.

It bothers me a great deal. I can’t get away from the thought that if you are a cheater at personal things, then you will cheat at political things as well.

Don’t support and propose legislation regulating how I live my life if you aren’t willing to live by the same rules.

Newt doesn’t pass that test.

It bothers me a great deal, and the only way I’d vote for them is if they were somehow the less evil candidate.

I think next term, that I will seek a nomination to run for the President of The United States. Us Tennessee men believe in getting the job done honestly, with an honest background. I have both. Anyone care to support me, if I do decide to run. I would first close the docks to any imported products that are not a necessity to the U.S. people. This would cutoff American factories off overseas and give jobs back to Americans.

Yes or No?

I think President Clinton was one of our greatest presidents even though I think he’s a complete dick for cheating on Hillary.

I don’t care what a person does in their personal life (or bedroom) as long as they get the job done. .

I wouldn’t vote for someone I perceived to be a hypocritical, unkind, two-timing, liar for anything. Not even president!

I may or may not.

For instance, John McCain is pro-life, but opposes any sort of Federal restrictions on abortion. Sometimes the ability to put one’s personal feelings aside in order to to your job is a virtue.

Accordingly, I refuse to give a blanket yes/no answer since tehre are too many variables.

If they were the lesser of two evils, yes.

I do think character is important, though. It’s something I value highly. But I also value the candidate’s actual policy views highly. So I dunno. Depends.

As of Thursday night, the Republicans can no longer say they are the party of “Family Values”. The crowds response to the questioning of Newt’s open marriage show they want to tell everyone else how to live, but no restrictions on them.

I don’t give a rat’s ass about a politician’s sex life, I do care when they are assholes about it, or sanctimonious about how others should live.

I hope Callista Gingrich doesn’t get sick, that’s when Newt will drop her.

“As of Thursday night, the Republicans can no longer say they are the party of “Family Values” ”

I don’t know where you’ve been for the last few years, but they lost that piece of moral high ground years ago, but that hasn’t stopped them yet. Just sayin’....

As long as they’re not hypocritical about it, sure. For instance, I would not vote for someone who blathers on and on about the ‘sanctity of marriage’ as an excuse to deny gay marriage rights, but doesn’t protect the sanctity of his own marriage. Don’t fucking pretend you’ve got the moral high-ground and then turn out to be a complete ass, you know?

Today on the CBS Sunday Morning Show, Nancy Giles talks about the hypocrisy. She pointed out that Gingrich signed a marriage fidelity pledge, while having a 6 year extra marital affair. She pointed out other hypocritical things he did. She said there have been many politicians who have had extramarital affairs, and it’s none of our business what they do with their personal time, but when they’re hypocritical in their politics she has a problem with it.

I wonder if evangelical Christians even see Gingrich as a hypocrite, or care about hypocrisy.

No, seriously. A fundamental part of this brand of Christianity is that man is fallen and incapable of goodness. We need Jesus for forgiveness and salvation because we are horrible and unworthy on our own. So of course a person (like Gingrich) is going to be a scumbag—that’s just human nature.

What’s important to these people isn’t Gingrich acts but his faith. And it’s not “hypocritical” of Gingrich to promote values while stumbling on those same values. That’s just Gingrich embodying the Christian worldview that man is destined to stumble.

I tend to try not to judge candidates by their personal lives. I don’t think getting an extra-marital blowjob makes Bill Clinton a bad president. I don’t think cheating on his wives in and of itself makes Newt a bad would-be president.

The problem arises, though, when there are discrepancies between what a candidate says he values and what he shows he values through his actions. If a candidate says he has family values yet shows blatant disregard for his family, he is a liar. What else is he lying about?

@Qingu But the problem with your surmising that approach is that the same people/preachers that don’t care about Gingrich’s adultery and dishonesty will absolutely condemn a gay person who wants to have a loving married relationship and raise a child with their partner.

To paraphrase Clinton’s 1992 slogan: “It’s the hypocrisy, stupid!”

@zenvelo If history is any indication, adultery is a minor sin at worst, and thus easy to forgive. As for lying, if that is what you have to do to keep us heathens from taking over the world then the ends justify the means.

@Mariah I lost respect for Clinton not because of the blowjob, but because of his standards. I don’t mind that he stepped out on Hillary, but unless Monica Lewinsky has one hell of a personality then he could’ve done better. I mean, JFK had Marilyn Monroe!

@zenvelo, but the gay person would not be asking for forgiveness for his sins or trying to repent. That’s the key difference.

Of course I’m sure many evangelicals are just bigoted homophobes which explains their double standard. But I’ve talked to a few in the younger generation who really aren’t. They see homosexuality, like adultery, as a sin, and accept that imperfect humans are prone to committing sin—and what’s important to them is the act of repentence and asking for forgiveness. Even if you have to repent over and over again because you can’t stop sinning!

Humans are pulled in two directions by the “nurture” part of “nature/nurture”: in the direction of the moral code ingrained in you by the people who raised you, and in the direction of the moral flexibility needed to coexist with others in a larger society. Disagreement on core issues is a dealbreaker if your upbringing led you to value a moral code more than the need to coexist in an increasingly liberal society led you to value the need to seek a morally relative perspective. Hypocrisy is a dealbreaker if your training in and valuation of moral relativism has a greater hold on you than your training in the need to value some specific moral code.

As Neal Stephenson points out in a retrospective of hypocrisy in the early twentieth century, “in [a morally relativistic] sort of a climate, you are not allowed to criticise others – after all, if there is no absolute right and wrong, then what grounds is there for criticism? [But] people are naturally censorious and love nothing better than to criticise others’ shortcomings…Hypocrisy [was] elevated…from an ubiquitous peccadillo into the monarch of all vices. For, you see, even if there is no right and wrong, you can find grounds to criticise another person by contrasting what he has espoused with what he has actually done. In this case, you are not making any judgment whatsoever as to the correctness of his views or the morality of his behaviour – you are merely pointing out that he has said one thing and done another… Many of the persons who [despise hypocrites] were, of course, guilty of the most nefarious conduct themselves, and yet saw no paradox in holding such views because they were not hypocrites themselves – they took no moral stances and lived by none. So they were morally superior to [the hypocrites] – even though – in fact, because – they had no morals at all. Most of the time [hypocrisy is] a spirit-is-willing, flesh-is-weak sort of thing. That we occasionally violate our stated moral code does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code” (The Diamond Age, 190 – 191).

The point being that people still vote for politicians they believe to be, in their private lives, morally bankrupt hypocrites is because they value some or another moral code more than they value their disdain for hypocrisy. And also that violating a moral code is a merely human thing to do, and that it does not translate to universal insincerity of character.

As for me – well, I can’t really relate to the example you give in your question, because I have no interest in voting for Republicans. But I do have this friend I was very close with in college, who later lied to me in the worst way I can imagine, and has now successfully taken his first step towards his longtime goal of becoming a force in American politics. I asked myself, would I ever vote for this man, even though I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is a liar and a cruel person? Doesn’t this mean he would just say anything to get ahead? But…I think my answer is yes, because I believe that even if he is a liar, he still believes strongly in pretty much the same political agenda I believe in. And this agenda is way more important to me than his personal shortcomings, and more real to me than doubts I have about his character. So yes – while hypocrisy bothers me a little, I would still vote for a candidate I knew to be a hypocrite.

@Qingu So – no, evangelical Christians do not, generally, care about hypocrisy as much as they care about the issues. Added bonus that their particular moral code leads them to see hypocrisy, and human vice in general, in a similar light to Stephenson’s.