Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has been mentioned before in this column. In the segment of that opus entitled The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the remark is made that in order to cover the phenomenal cost of an evening at the restaurant, all one has to do is deposit a penny in a savings account before leaving one’s own era. Even at low interest, an unimaginably great amount of money will have been accumulated in the course of several billion years. (Never mind that many planets, including the earth, would have burned up in the interim, complete with their banks. This is comic science fiction, after all.)

This morning I asked a group of friends I was having coffee with what point in time they would choose to visit if they could travel to the past. Mostly they were bewildered by the question, but some thought in terms of going back to an earlier point in their lives to remedy some error that had negative effects. The possibility of going back with a little information about what was going to happen in certain real estate markets was brought up.

Being the student of the Bible that I am, I said one moment in time that I would dearly love to witness is the one related in Mark 7:24-30, in which a Gentile woman from Syrian Phoenicia approaches Jesus to ask him to come and heal her daughter. Jesus answers her in mock-prejudiced terms, telling her it just isn’t right to give the children’s bread to dogs.

This is a bright and spunky lady, though. She picks up on the fact that he doesn’t use the word for “dog” that the Jews usually use for Gentiles, meaning a filthy, mangy scavenger. Rather, he uses the word for a little lap dog, a pet. She says, I’m sure with an ornery glint in her eye, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

Jesus obviously loves her answer, and tells her to go home because her daughter is well. I’m convinced that Jesus was doubled over laughing when he told her he was granting her request. That is why I’d like to see that scene as it took place.

Many people, though, would like to go back to certain turning points in history and watch, for example, a great general going through the agony of trying to out-think his adversary, perhaps bringing his knowledge of chess to bear. I would love to see Alexander the Great debating with his trusted second-in-command, Parmenio, before the Battle of Gaugamela, about what to do when King Darius’s chariots charged. One might even speculate that Alexander’s father, Philip, whose name means “lover of horses,” wasn’t named in vain, and that he had told Alexander that horses would not charge into an enclosure surrounded by lances. In any case, what a moment of inspiration it must have been when the idea was put forward of directing those chariots into U-shaped formations in order to stop the horses and chariots and slaughter their occupants. For that matter, I would like to see Alexander’s face as he made the hard decision to return and support Parmenio, who was in trouble, rather than pursue and kill Darius.

Following the Battle of Waterloo, Wellington called it “a damned close-run thing,” and some practical people might well choose to go back to tip the scales on other “damned close-run things,” so that some of the worst horrors of history might have been avoided.

Of course, some physicists have felt time travel into the past must be impossible for the simple reason that, what with the butterfly effect in operation (a butterfly in Beijing today may affect weather conditions in New York City a month from now), any slight change in the events back there would radically change our circumstances today. The example most often given is that of a deranged person’s going back to kill his/her father before he could generate a child. The thing ends in paradox. Those who hold to the many-worlds theory, though, have no such problem; in an event of that sort the world without the patricide simply splits off from the one from which the time traveler departs.

Where some serious hypocrisy might enter the picture, however, is if someone imbued with radically postmodern values might travel back to the point at which the United States Constitution is being generated and make an impassioned speech about how many points in it will be considered embarrassing in what he firmly believes is a more enlightened, relativistic age. It’s something to think about.

Kwame Kilpatrick Is A Past and Present Hypocrite and First Rate Nincompoop.

Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick (D), 38 was jailed Thursday for breaking conditions of his bail, released Friday and the District Attorney says he broke bail again on Saturday. Kwame was elected at the age of 31, he is the youngest mayor in the history of Detroit, as well as one of youngest current mayors of any major U.S. city and has the further distinction of being the only major city mayor currently charged with a felony.

Kilpatrick briefly addressed the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He is currently Vice President of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors and its representative to the Democratic National Committee. On June 3, 2008 Mayor Kilpatrick endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for President.

Kilpatrick have been plagued with controversies which have included allegations of adultery, conspiracy, and perjury. On March 24, 2008, Kilpatrick was charged with eight felony counts, including perjury, misconduct in office, and obstruction of justice. If found guilty of felony perjury, Kilpatrick would be disbarred and could be jailed for up to 15 years per count. The City Council voted support for him rejecting calls for his resignation.

Soon after taking office he was criticized for using city funds to lease a car for use by his family and using his city issued credit card to charge $210,000 worth of spa massages, extravagant dining, and expensive Moët et Chandon champagne. Kilpatrick would later pay back $9000 of the credit card charges.

When serious questions about water department contracts came to light in late 2005 Judge Feikens ended Mayor Kilpatrick’s special administratorship. In January, 2006, the Detroit News reported that,

“… Kilpatrick used his special administrator authority to bypass the water board and City Council on three controversial contracts:

• A $131 million radio system that will be used mostly by Detroit police and fire departments.
• A $21.3 million security upgrade performed by a company tied to the mayor’s friend, Bobby Ferguson.
• A $38,000 no-bid public relations contract awarded to Bob Berg, the spokesman for Kilpatrick’s re-election campaign.

Kilpatrick’s first controversy involved a wild party in the fall of 2002 involving strippers at the official residence of the mayor-the city-owned Manoogian Mansion. It is alleged by former members of the mayor’s Executive Protection Unit that the mayor’s wife, Carlita Kilpatrick, came home unexpectedly and upon discovering Kwame with the strippers began to attack one of the women.

The April 17, 2005 issue of Time Magazine listed Kirkpatrick as one of the three worst big-city mayors in the United States,along with San Diego’s and Philadelphia’s Mayors.

Kwame is the son of 20-year U. S. Representative Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich. Who heads the Black Congressional Caucus. She is not implicated in any of her son’s problems.

I just read a fascinating article by Alice Thompson of the Times Online who was discussing a new book “Not In My Name - A Compendium of Modern Hypocrisy” by Julie Burchill:

The premise is that as the economy gets worse, people no longer care about being green because they can’t afford it any more. It makes perfect sense. When you were making a good salary and had enough to satisfy your basic needs then you had the extra to buy the higher priced green items. But today, when money is tight, buying green is a luxury available only to the upperclass or “toffs”.

Perhaps because most people can’t afford to go green, there is a growing trend to mock the rich who are green. There is a collective sarcastic laugh by the masses when Al Gore and his ilk continue to lecture everyone else. In a bad economy that “Truth” of Gore’s is not simply “Inconvenient” but is now ridiculous. Who is going to pay extra for green

foods when they have barely enough to put any food on the table? Not only are people backing away from the expensive green ideology but they are also laughing at far left greenies and monitoring their hypocrisies. The conservative bloggers and other right wings take delight in finding and counting the hypocrisy of Gore and other greenies who preach that we must be green while they fly around in their private gas guzzling jets.

Although Gore and his Hollywood sycophants still tout the green doctrine, the politicians are observing which way the wind is blowing and are now changing their tune. Maybe that’s another reason Gore is such a lousy politician, but even Obama has given fewer and fewer green speeches. Because as long as the economy is lousy, only Kermit can afford to be green.

With an abundance of hypocrisy in America, who is

Your Favorite Hypocrite?

Hey there America, what’s your favorite gaffe of recent years? Was it a gaffe, or hypocrisy run amuck? Here are a few of mine, and make no mistake about it, there were no gaffes in these.

Whoopi Goldberg, Al Sharpton and good ol’ Reverend Jesse Jackson, a trio of hypocrisy. A ménage à pocrisy if you will.

Whoopi’s Pecksniffian attitude illuminated brightly on the View during her acrimonious assault on poor little cry baby, Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Once again it was the controversial and hackneyed “N” word debate.

For someone to say the black community can use a particular word, and no other race can, sounds like pure hypocrisy to me. To purport blacks have “taken the N-word back and made it their own” is ludicrous. The biased, the racist, the hate mongers, those are the ones who make words their own. They are the ones who give special meaning, degrading, derisive and hateful meanings, to certain words. For Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Whoopi Goldberg, or any of the black community to have a ritual of “burying the N-word” and then espouse the use of it in pop culture, or condone its use amongst a particular class of people, is pure hypocrisy. Not only was Whoopi being hypocritical, but her ideals and rhetoric perpetuate racial friction far beyond what educated and rational people should allow.

Jesse Jackson’s sardonic excoriation of Barack Obama, an eloquent, aristocratic, charismatic and well educated black man, is beyond hypocrisy. It is a showing of Mr. Jackson’s abysmal ignorance and it displays his own inadequacies when it comes to leadership. Jackson is not a godsend to the black community, he is the eternal wind that carries the racial divide in America.

Al Sharpton first came into the national spotlight during the Tawana Brawley debacle. That’s where he falsely accused Steven Pagones, then-district attorney, of raping her. Remember that? Brawley claimed a white man abducted, raped and scrawled racial epithets on her with feces. A grand jury later determined she made it all up to avoid being punished for staying out too late. Sharpton’s inexorable defamation caused Pagones indelible hardships and threats on his and his child’s life. Filing suit against Sharpton for liable defamation a jury awarded Pagones a handsome judgment. However, it took Pagones over two years to collect since Sharpton transferred all his assets into his wife’s name and Pagone only got paid when Sharpton’s friends eventually ponied up. To this day Sharpton has refused to apologize for his actions.

And what about the racial epithets he hurls around like so many pieces of candy thrown to children. At a funeral he complained about “the diamond merchants in Crown Heights,” a disparaging reference to Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish population. Or in 1995 when he referred to a Jewish storeowner in Harlem, with a racially divisive comment, as a “white interloper”. Sharpton covertly incited the black community to demonstrate in the streets where Freddy’s Fashion Mart was stormed and set on fire, killing eight. He denied any moral responsibility and said he never spoke at any protest rallies, therefore, he could not be held responsible. However, tapes showed up later proving Sharpton made a provocative speech at least once intimating and explicitly using racial epithets. When asked about it, Reverend Sharpton replied. “What’s wrong with denouncing white interlopers?”

Hypocrisy abounds with Mr. Sharpton. After all, didn’t he lead the wolves against Don Imus? How can one so inflammatory, someone so anti-Semitic, have the audacity to censure and call to the carpet one such as Don Imus. I’m not condoning what Imus said, but after all, that’s what he was paid to do. Wasn’t it? Why didn’t Sharpton go after the network, or the executives of the show? Aren’t they the ones who promoted Imus’ actions? Could it be Sharpton wouldn’t be able to incite the black community with that approach? Enough said about Reverend Sharpton. I don’t think he can hold any credibility with a sane or logical person and he will go down in history as a bigoted, hate mongering, race-card-playing incendiary whose hypocrisy continually goes unchallenged.

And Al, it’s time to move into the 21^st century, get rid of that James Brown hairdo.

Next is Representative Mark Foley, not only a despicable human being, but a prototypical hypocrite as well. Rep. Foley co-chaired the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children and was a leading proponent on cracking down on pedophiles. But the scandal that broke in September of 2006 exposed him for the degenerate he was and set a new touchstone for hypocrisy.

The scandal centered on solicitous emails and sexually explicit text messages he sent to a sixteen year old male page. Foley asked the teen. “Do I make you horny?” The teen later described the correspondence as, “sick, sick, sick, sick, sick.” Foley, after much derision and excoriation, resigned from Congress on September 29, 2006. Personally, I think they should have made an example of his hypocrisy and sent him to “the big house” where Bubba could make him his little boy.

Then there’s the restroom enthusiast who loves to play footsies. That’s right, the Idaho Senator Larry Craig. Didn’t he say he would be glad to do community service to make amends? Like picking up trash in men’s rooms at airports around the country.

Homosexual allegations had plagued Senator Craig for twenty-five years. He denied any wrong doing in the 1982 page scandal and insisted he was not among the seven House members accused of homosexual conduct. Then on June 11, 2007 he was arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on suspicion of lewd conduct. The nature of the alleged activity was categorized by some as cottaging. (Cottaging; a gay slang term referring to anonymous male-male sex in a public lavatory, or the practice of cruising for sexual partners in public lavatories with the intention of having sex. The term may have its roots in the English cant language of Polari, or in the fact that many self-contained English toilet blocks have in the past resembled small cottages in their appearance.)

According to the police report an officer was sitting in the bathroom stall next to Craig as part of an undercover operation investigating complaints of sexual activity in the restroom. After about 13 minutes of sitting in the stall the officer observed Craig lingering outside and frequently peering through the crack of the door. It was stated that Craig entered the stall to the left of him and the officer made the following observations, which were recorded in his report.

“At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moved his foot closer to my foot. … The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot, which was within my stall area. Craig then proceeded to swipe his left hand under the stall divider several times, with the palm of his hand facing upward.”

According to the incident report and criminal complaint filed in court, the officer showed Craig his police identification beneath the partition separating their stalls and then pointed his finger towards the restroom exit. Craig initially said no, but ultimately complied with the officer’s request to leave the restroom. After they left Craig was reluctant to go with the officer and demanded he show his police identification a second time. Once the officer complied with the request, Craig, the arresting officer, and a police detective, who was stationed outside the restroom, went to the airport police station. The arresting officer read Craig his Marinda rights and then interviewed him about the restroom incident. At one point Craig handed his business card to the officer, which identified him as a U.S. Senator, and said, “what do you think about that?” The officer said nothing and proceeded with the interview. Craig later plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct and paid $575 in fines and fees.

In December of 2007 eight gay men came forward to the Idaho Statesman newspaper alleging both, homosexual encounters with Senator Craig, or attempts by him to engage them in sexual acts. Four of the men gave graphic, recorded details of their alleged sexual encounters to the newspaper, which in turn published them on their web site. One of the four was Mike Jones, a male escort who in November 2006 was involved in a sex and methamphetamine scandal with Ted Haggard. Jones claimed that Craig paid him $200 for a massage and oral sex, which a Craig spokesman categorically denied.

Where the hypocrisy comes in is this. He criticized Bill Clinton on “Meet the Press” for the Monica Lewinsky scandal and called Bill a “nasty, bad, naughty boy.” In 2002 he voted against a bill to extend the federal definition of hate crimes to cover sexual orientation and in 2004 and 2006 he cosponsored constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriages. He supported the Federal Marriage Amendment which barred the extension of rights to same-sex couples and voted “yes” on an Idaho constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages when pressured by the anti-gay rights group, “Families for a Better Idaho”. He also voted against a bill that would have extended the federal definition of hate crimes to cover sexual orientation, which was passed in 2007 by both the House and the Senate as the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007.

The LGBT advocacy group, the Human Rights Campaign, issued guides to candidates’ voting records in 2004 and gave Craig a 0 rating. Mr. Craig’s private life definitely belies his public record and for this he gets my vote for the runner up for hypocrite of the decade.

And after that conglomerate of hypocrites we come to my personal favorite, that’s right, ex-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. The epitome of hypocrisy, not to mention sanctimony.

A new sheriff came to Wall Street on December 20, 2002, his name was Eliot Spitzer. He took the podium at the New York Stock Exchange and announced his intention to protect the small investor. “The Joe Smith in Utica and Jane Smith in Topeka, the one thing they deserve is honest advice and fair dealing,” he roared across the floor. Spitzer was the protagonist in an ongoing saga, protecting the little guy from minor, sometimes insignificant, transgressions of nefarious villains. His best asset was his ability to draw in the public and play on their desires and prejudices. Isn’t this the selfish acts of a demagogue? Hmmm, I believe it is.

Spitzer was indeed the “Wall Street reformer” as depicted by securities lawyer Greg Bruch in this statement. “Is Wall Street cleaner and more highly regulated because of Eliot Spitzer? Absolutely.” But Spitzer always seemed to aggrandize every issue, every grievance. Always calling it to the forefront and promulgating it to make sure everyone was aware of his righteous actions. However, he was always in such a hurry to be at center stage to attain stardom, perhaps in consideration of advancing his own political career, it appeared he had forgotten about Joe and Jane. In doing this he was viewed as somewhat unorthodox and lacked the skills or desires of a more methodical regulator. He never prosecuted some of the “villains” he identified and sometimes used press leaks, innuendos and intimation as a measure of guilt that he never went to the trouble of proving. Along with Bruch’s first statement he also said this. “The downside is that he introduced disrespect for the rule of law.”

Governor Spitzer eventually viewed Wall Street more accommodatingly, after all he courted many for donations during his candidacy. Following on the heels of his “Wall Street cleanup” he endorsed a consultant’s report that called for less regulation of the financial industry, an early hypocritical move in his career. All in all, it appears the ol’ sheriff has been run out of town and it doesn’t look like he’ll be coming back any time soon.

The Attorney General rattled many cages with investigations into stock research, mutual funds, insurance sales and record labels. He also attacked escort services, prostitution and drug trafficking. Here are a few statements he made in regards to the latter.

A June, 2006 statement he made regarding pending legislation.

“Another important issue that needs to be addressed is the problem of sexual predators. For over six years I have been pushing for legislation allowing the civil commitment of such individuals, and we should not let another year pass without action. In addition, we need legislation to punish those who engage in human trafficking. This is a particularly heinous crime that primarily targets women and immigrants, including those forced into prostitution. This is a growing crime and we need strong provisions allowing us to address it.”

In a press release from Spitzer’s office regarding an escort service operating in New York City, Long Island, Westchester and New Jersey, a service the authorities believed was a front for a massive prostitution ring, Spitzer said this.

“This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multi-tiered management structure. It was however, nothing more than a prostitution ring and now its owners and operators will be held accountable.”

In August 2003, Spitzer announced a lawsuit against the operators of a travel agency operating in Dutchess and Queens counties that arranged tours of South East Asian bars that serve as a venue for illegal prostitution. Here is another quote from Mr. Spitzer.

“The company … promotes prostitution and the abuse of young women. This suit seeks a halt to this egregious conduct.”

This litany could go on eternally, but suffice it to say, we all know the end result. It’s not that Mr. Spitzer had numerous trysts with one or more prostitutes, it was his actions that belied his true nature, a scurrilous and deceitful nature that is most abysmal. While spending tens of thousands of taxpayer’s dollars on his own sexual gratification, he stood before all and decried the very same thing in which he partook. He condemned and prosecuted some escort services and travel agencies as illegal prostitution rings, while participating with one, the Emperors Club VIP. Mr. Spitzer will go down in history as the infamous “client #9”.

My question is this. Did then-governor Spitzer have more involvement than we know? If he used his political and prosecutorial powers to put some out of business while endorsing another, was there something more profound going on? I’ll let you, the reader, be the judge.

But moreover, with Mr. Spitzer getting my vote for hypocrite of the decade, who gets yours? What particular type of hypocrisy sticks in your craw? And who is the biggest perpetrator in your eyes?

These days it seems as if it’s a good time to invest in bicycles (to save gas money) and mattresses (to store your savings). At least, we can drown our sorrows in “hopsicles” and if we forget where we hid our money we can rely on our daily cuppa to refresh our memory. We may be a nation of whiners, but wouldn’t life be a lot simpler if the economy (and certain world leaders and/or those seeking the position) didn’t give us anything to whine about?

1. It’s true, you can’t please all the people all of the time. But, is it possible to abuse the privilege?

23/6 - News: Poll: Who’s Obama gonna piss off next?
With polls showing Obama losing his “glow,” every couple of days we’re finding out about another group who is getting a little pissed off at Barack.

2. Let it never be said that GWB didn’t leave behind a well-remembered presidency (not well-thought of but, definitely well-remembered).

Alternate Brain: Legacy of a Lunatic
From the beginning, Bush surrounded himself with incompetent cronies, yes-men, and sycophants with a lust for influence, and handed out positions of power to people whose blind loyalty was the only measure of their suitability. Qualities like honesty and strength of character were never assessed, and were in fact an obvious hindrance for those who aspired to the inner circle.

3. In other words, there is no end in sight for our already overburdened troops, regardless of who’s elected.

CommonDreams.org: Obama Promises 10,000 More Troops for Afghanistan
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama yesterday pledged to increase US troops in Afghanistan by a third if he becomes president, sending 10,000 more to reinforce the 33,000 already there.

The Republicans have precious little to be excited about these days. Things are looking bleak. The evangelical Christians aren’t excited about John McCain becoming president, so their support is less than enthusiastic.  A feeling of utter desperation must be why a group of conservative right-wing Republicans recently pulled the Federal Marriage Amendment out of the closet, so to speak. Only this time it’s called the Protect Marriage Act. It’s impossible to keep the name straight anymore but, regardless of what it’s called, what this law seeks to do is write discrimination into the U.S. Constitution by defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Thankfully, this particular piece of legislation has a very long shot at even getting a hearing. Still, it’s particularly irksome on two fronts. First, this continuous attack on the Constitution is getting to be the Theater of the Absurd. Enough is enough. Second, we gay folk are tired of being used as a polarizing issue when all we really want are our civil rights as guaranteed in said Constitution (not ’special’ rights as the conservatives would have you believe). I discovered the ultimate in hypocrisy when I went to look the bill up and discovered that two of its cosponsors are none other than Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana) and Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho), two far-right conservatives whose sexual exploits make a mockery of heterosexual marriage.

For those of you who need a review, we’ll start with Senator Vitter. During his campaign for the senate, the good Mr. Vitter was accused of carrying on a rather lengthy tryst with a French Quarter prostitute. At the time he labeled the accusation as “absolutely and completely untrue.” It was after he was elected that his telephone number was found in the phone records of the famous ‘DC Madam.’ At that point denial seemed silly, so instead he pulled the rehabilitation and reconciliation routine out of his pocket. “Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling,” said Vitter. Signing on to write discrimination into the Constitution must be his way of purging his guilt.

Senator Larry Craig’s sponsorship of this bill is even more absurd. On August 27, 2007, we learned from the Capitol Hill newspaper, Roll Call, that Craig had been arrested trolling around the men’s bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport looking for extramarital homosexual favors. Unfortunately, he was soliciting homosexual favors from an undercover policeman. This is the same Senator Craig who appeared on Meet the Press at the height of President Clinton’s impeachment trial (1999) and informed Tim Russert that the majority of citizens in Idaho thought that Bill Clinton was a “nasty, bad, naughty boy.” Yes, those are his exact words. What do you suppose they think of Senator Craig if they think Bill Clinton was bad, naughty and nasty?

Senator Craig was accused of playing ‘footsy’ in the bathroom stall with the officer, who was in the adjoining stall. After much wrangling and gnashing of teeth, the charges were reduced and Craig pled guilty to a lesser charge of ‘disorderly conduct.’ However, there had been rumors and innuendo about Craig’s homosexuality in the past and this incident brought it all front and center once again. In late 2007, the Idaho Statesman ran an exhaustively-researched story revealing that Craig has been accused of having a history of homosexual encounters dating back to 1967. (For the record, he has had more than one men’s room encounter.) No fewer than eight gay men came forward to tell stories to the Statesman of having had sex with Craig after seeing him deny his homosexuality on television. Should he resign if he’s a homosexual? Hell, no.

There are gays in office who serve both their constituents and the government admirably. Likewise, there are people in office who have done far worse than solicit sex with someone. (Just take a look at our imperial president’s dismal record of service to this country. He still has his job.) However, Larry Craig should come clean. It’s difficult to believe that all of these gay men are uniting to spread lies about Craig. If the prostitute-loving David Vitter is still serving, Larry Craig should be allowed to serve. After all, Vitter could just as easily have been caught in a sting and charged. What cooked Vitter’s goose was that his name was posted on the web by the D.C. Madam herself. What neither of these clowns should be doing is preventing those who truly do want to be married, regardless of their sexual orientation, from doing so. This is a double dose of hypocrisy.

Our third horseman is still a babe in the woods compared to Vitter and Craig, but no less hypocritical. This guy hasn’t even been elected yet and he’s got a first-class scandal under his belt. His name is Mike Erickson and he’s running on a pro-life ticket in Oregon’s 5^th Congressional District. What’s Erickson’s transgression? How about the fact that he’s running on a pro-life ticket but paid for his girlfriend’s abortion. Perhaps ‘girlfriend’ isn’t an appropriate term here. Let’s just say he had an intimate relationship with someone who became pregnant in 2000. According to the woman, “not only did he pick me up and drive me to the abortion clinic, he completely encouraged me to do that.” The woman also revealed that he withdrew $300 from his bank account to pay for the procedure. Of course, Erickson is claiming that he didn’t know he was paying for that type of medical procedure.

The unnamed woman, a Republican, first thought about coming forward when Erickson ran (and lost) in 2006. She had received a mailer highlighting his endorsement by Oregon Right to Life and was disgusted by the fact that he was running on a pro-life ticket. However, she backed down after setting up an interview because she was afraid of the repercussions of coming forward. In 2008, she decided to share her story with the Portland Tribune. The story appeared on the front page on May 12. The 33-year-old Clackamas County woman states, “I think it’s completely hypocritical that he would solicit or ask for an endorsement from Right to Life.” There’s plenty of hypocrisy to go around on this one.

According to Lois Anderson, political director for Oregon Right to Life, she spoke to the woman at length back in 2006 and found her to be credible. She also spoke to Erickson, who denied it all. Since the allegations were uncorroborated, Oregon Right to Life allowed its 2006 endorsement of Erickson to stand. Oregon Right to Life stated that the woman had been clearly traumatized by the abortion and the organization would have no choice but to give an explanation if they retracted their endorsement. In Anderson’s mind, there was no way to do this without revealing information that was harmful to the woman. “I don’t have any reason to doubt her,” Anderson states, “I think the fuzziness is because of the trauma.” In 2008, Oregon Right to Life did not endorse Erickson. Instead, they endorsed his Republican challenger, Kevin Mannix, also running on a pro-life ticket.

What’s the point? The point is that government is a haven for hypocrites. Public servants are neither here to tell people how to live their personal lives nor to legislate morality. The U.S. Constitution is very clear about its basic tenets: All men are created equal. All men have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That means that everyone has the right to marry. There is nothing in our Constitution now that denies same-sex marriage. Yet, the threat has been introduced because politicians have muddied the waters by blurring the line between church and state. Our government isn’t based on the Bible, but on the Constitution. I’m confident that our founding fathers would never approve of the Constitution being amended for the purpose of denying a specific group of people its civil rights. While many of them were God-fearing men, they clearly understood that religion and politics do not mix.