The Silence of the Moral Majority

After being lectured to by religious conservatives over the threat to the family of gay marriage, I am on the edge of my seat to hear what those same conservatives will say about conservative Republican Congressman Mark Foley's sexualization of adult-child relationships. Apparently, these young people were some of our best and brightest -- engaging in meaningful government service by serving as congressional pages while still in their teen years.

I have a niece on her early twenties who is serving in Washington as a congressional aide. She is a woman of high ideals and strong moral fiber, possessing a vision of a better world and eager to make a difference. When I think of her, I am more readily able to imagine these young people who served in Congressman Foley's offices. I shudder to think how devastating it would be for her to have the experience of these young people: how devastating it must have been for these young men and women to discover that the person whom they strove to model their lives after because of his apparent power, prestige and moral leadership is actually himself a sexual predator and a hypocrite.

Jesus Christ saved his moral outrage for those he called the hypocrites: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence." (Matthew 23:25) Among today's self-proclaimed followers of Christ, I expect to hear a strong voice of moral leadership to emerge that will name the sins of hypocrisy and self-indulgence that has corrupted the lives of our young people, and will wash their own lives from the inside out of whatever sin or weakness holds them (and all of us) back from charting a new course for the coming generations.