Don't cross the streams!

I'm sure I heard that advice somewhere. Don't cross the streams, right?

Well, Governor Sanford is admitting that, yes, he in fact crossed a stream or two (I know, I know, not the same kind of stream, poetic licence has been applied for and is awaiting bureaucratic approval, ok?), with some women.

As usual, when the rock gets turned over off these guys, you just never know what's going to crawl out. In this case:

He said that during the encounters with other women he "let his guard down" with some physical contact but "didn't cross the sex line." He wouldn't go into detail.

Sanford said the casual encounters happened outside the U.S. while he was married but before he met Chapur, on trips to "blow off steam" with male friends.

Chapur would be Maria Belen Chapur, the Argentinean woman with whom he spent a five-day "lost weekend" in Buenos Aires last week.

So let me get this (ahem*) straight: last week, his infidelity was supposed to be sort of excusable because it was with his soulmate. In fact, the word is used in this very article. But to be clear, he's also had a number of casual encounters while (ahem again) "blowing off steam" with male friends outside the US.

Cue all sorts of giddy speculation in various media about what, exactly, it means to have crossed lines, but not crossed the sex line. I trust we can be above that here? On the principle that the activities of a person in their love life should be None Of Our Damned Business.

See...it's all kinds of gleeful for us, that Governor Sanford was so shrill about former President Clinton's sexual behaviours, and is now measuring his own Procrustean bed. But if we're to remain true to our principles, which say that a person's sex life should have no bearing on their fitness for office, then I'd contend it remains none of our business, even though he was a hypocrite about it.

I think it's reasonable to say it's bad for him to be hypocritical, in declaring himself politically in favour of certain values, while betraying them privately. It's reasonable - in fact, I'd say mandatory - that he be held to account for using state funds for his personal ends, and that he be held to account for abdicating his responsibility as Governor of South Carolina by disappearing and remaining incommunicado for five days.

I do not think it's reasonable for us to say or imply he's a bad Governor because his dereliction of duty included Father's Day. I do not think it's reasonable to criticize him for having sex outside of his marriage. I do not think it's reasonable to criticize his wife for her choices on what to do about their marriage.

Why? Because as a queer, polyamourous person, I don't want to be denied the right to run for public office because of my sexuality or behaviours; it behooves me, then, to be certain I don't criticize others for those things, or it's me being the hypocrite, and that makes me a lot less reliable narrator in trying to bring opinion pieces before the public. How can I make the claim with a clear conscience that I should be allowed that freedom, if I won't respect someone else's freedom to their own sexuality and behaviours?

So yes, have at him about the hypocrisy of espousing a set of values he clearly doesn't hold himself to. About the hypocrisy, mind! Have at him over the allegedly misappropriated funds. Have at him over the abdication of responsibility in not respecting his succession, when he took off for his lost weekend.

But we don't need to know who, or when, or why or how often, except insofar as it relates to the above issues. We don't actually need to know what it means to cross some lines, including some physicality, and not others.

And yes, the Republicans are scrambling to say how we should forgive him, and they, too, are being big hypocrites, which I think it's perfectly reasonable to address. And yes, that means they're "getting away with it" in a way they won't let Democrats.

But if we're to be true to who we proclaim ourselves to be, and what we claim to believe in, we need to focus on the political issues, and governance issues, rather than who did what with whom in what hotel when.

* I wish we had a different idiomatic word for "clear" than "straight": I want to say, "Let's just keep this appopriately bent:..."