Good ol' Fashioned American Sex Scandals

Sex scandals in government, politics and religions seem to be as American as apple pie these days. Yesterday's unveiling of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's involvement with a high-class call girl service is only the latest in a series of ongoing sexual deviance in the halls of power. We can all of course remember last June when Senator Larry Craig entered a public restroom at the Minneapolis International Airport (which happened to be a hotspot for homosexual sex) and propositioned an undercover police officer. Memories of Mark Foley propositioning young men on the Internet in 2006 are still fresh in the minds of Americans (Foley by the way happened to crusade the fight against internet predators while in Congress). And then of course there is the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, who denied having sexual relations under oath, only to later admit to "inappropriate relations" at a later date.

Let us not forget the misdeeds of our beloved American preachers, many of whom bravely preached chastity and morality behind the pulpit, only to be caught in a web of deceit themselves. In 1986 the Pentecostal minister Jimmy Swaggart was caught having sexual relations with several of his parishioners. In 1991 Swaggart was caught again in the arms of his "loving" prostitute, Rosemary Garcia, when the couple were pulled over by a California State Trooper. Then of course there is the tragic story of one Ted Haggard, who served as president for the National Association of Evangelicals and was an outspoken critic of homosexuality. Come to find out, Mr. Haggard himself liked to indulge in discreet homosexual activities while smoking meth.

With these scandals in mind, along with the many others I neglected to mention, one may feel that the United States is heading down the slippery slope of immorality, where certain destruction awaits us around the next corner. Is our generation becoming corrupted by sexual misdeeds? How do we compare to generations past?

Have no fear fellow Americans; we are far from alone when it comes to sexual deviance. Let us travel back to the time of America's founding to uncover a few parallel examples of inappropriate sexual contact. First off, we have the hero of American economics, Alexander Hamilton, who became our nation's first Secretary of the Treasury. In the latter part of his time in the Washington Administration, Hamilton admitted to having a long-term affair with a Maria Reynolds. The affair ruined Hamilton's personal reputation, but did little to his professional life. Then there is the case of Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and this nation's 3rd president. Jefferson, has long been accused of having sexual relations with one of his slaves (Sally Hemmings) and even allegedly had a child with the woman. Jefferson never said anything publicly about the charges. In the early 1990s, DNA testing on the Hemmings line revealed the strong presence of Jefferson DNA, evidence that is irrefutable to the doubter. Even the beloved Benjamin Franklin, one of America's most celebrated Founders, admitted in his autobiography to having sexual relations "with women of low character." While in England, Franklin regularly enjoyed sharing his bed with scores of prostitutes. Franklin later stated that it was a miracle that he never acquired any diseases.

There you have it! Sexual deviance is as timeless of an institution as any other in this nation. Perhaps it should pass baseball and become our national pastime. Will American politicians ever learn? If history is a gauge of the future then the answer is a resounding HELL NO!!! We are doomed to see this pathetic cycle repeat itself soon enough. The only question I have is, who’s next?