Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina, I’m Just Trying To Walk The Line

The soapy saga of the lovestruck governor, the dishonorable Mark Sanford of the great state of South Carolina… almost topped the news this week.

His psoriasis of love is certainly one of the biggest itches of recent political history and almost put Michael Jackson’s death in the shadows. But we humans, floating in the 24/7 tsunami of poor taste fostered by network and cable celebrity news, like a good scandal.

A metaphor for the last week was supplied by the Alpo dog food company. Their researchers offered volunteers five types of mashed up food, including pâté, duck liver mousse, liverwurst and meat from a can of Alpo. Only three out of the eighteen volunteers were able to distinguish the dog food from the other delicacies. Whether Sanford will manage to remain as governor after “crossing so many lines” is basically up to the political gods of the Palmetto State.

Maybe they will use the long fronds of the tropical tree to cool off the hot governor so he can continue to lead them on the right trail – Appalachian, not Argentinian. I think it’s an even bet he can survive the onslaught of the righteous, but as W.C. Fields said in one of his heavier moments: “Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.”

So, who knows if all these flights to Argentine fantasies will come crashing down? Sanford seems to have admitted testing quite a few samples “crossing” his path. Perhaps some of them really like Alpo.

What’s a handful of women? Would that include the likes of Ma Frickert, Joan Rivers and Anna Nicole Smith? Sanford says he “crossed lines” with a handful of women other than his mistress – but never had sex with them.

Is he pulling a William Jefferson “never-had-sex-with-that-woman” Clinton on us? Couldn’t he tell a soul mate from an Alpo eater? He said he “never crossed the ultimate line” with anyone except his new soul mate, Maria Belen Chapur. He says he “let his guard down” and “engaged in some physical contact” but “didn’t cross the sex line.” I guess that means he was just canoodling, dallying at full staff, trifling with, vamping instead of making the “beast with two backs” that Will Shakespeare so aptly described.

But with Maria all guards were AWOL, the Palmetto fronds were not cooling, and he admits “I spent the last five days crying in Argentina.” This is heavy-breathing stuff.

The “Devil Made Me Do It” Defense

According to Cal Thomas, that great defender of everything Republican and Christian “family values,” that Sexy Sanford must have heard the “voice” that’s “always on the prowl looking for new people to destroy.” I’m assuming the voice belongs to the Devil, whispering dirty thoughts in the oft-kissed ears of the “family values” governor.

This is, I must also assume, the beginning of “The Devil Made Me Do It” defense made famous by so many Christian politicians caught with zippers and pants down. Thomas makes the broad “assumption” that “every married person has heard the voice; the one that says you deserve something ‘better.’” Sexy Sanford must be thoroughly confused most of the time, listening raptly to all those voices telling him that something “better’” is in the next skirt.

Sexy Sanford, steeped in Biblical lore, had the audacity to compare himself to King David and his “family values” Simmons romp with Bathsheba while her husband was away fighting for their country. Sanford says King David then picked up the pieces of his life.

That’s why he doesn’t want to resign. However, Mrs. Sanford said, “His career is not a concern of mine. He’ll be worrying about that, and I’ll be worrying about my family and the character of my children.” I like her. Give him another shot in his testimonials.

When Corky and I spent a three-year tour in the South, we quickly found out that most Southern politicians had the morals of scorpions and plantation owners. They felt that if they were elected they had a divine right to money and sex as long as they folded their hands in prayer on Sunday. Think of Huey Long, Bill Clinton, Nuke Grinch and Big Daddy in “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.”

Ex-Governor Ed Edwards of Louisana (I think he’s still in jail on corruption charges) described the attitude of Southern politicians with his famous line: “The only way I’d lose an election would be if I were found in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.”

Sanford seems to have the same attitude. Of course, as a hard-as-rock conservativefundamentalist he got elected railing against sinners and hugging his kids out in public. But, if he is such a Bible thumper, I would think he would be preparing for his public stoning near the Confederate flag on the grounds of the South Carolina capital.

Isn’t that the punishment for adultery? Can the Bible just be ignored if you don’t agree with the verse?

Sexy Sanford also opposes same-sex marriage with every fiber of his body – which he seems to have used a lot lately. He claims his wife Jenny gave him permission to go to New York with his spiritual advisor to meet Maria and kiss her off. I’m not sure that would even make a believable movie scene. Sanford says same-sex marriages are a threat to traditional marriages in the heterosexual scene.

Here’s a guy who is prowling around the fleshpots of the South Carolina capital looking for scores, and he is worried about “traditional” marriage?

I have yet to hear a sound reason how marriage between two lesbians affects marriage between two heterosexuals. We are what we are. God didn’t ensure that each person would get the exact amount of testosterone or estrogen necessary for the process of bringing Pol Pot or Mother Teresa into the world. If Evangelicals believe the Bible when it says God looked in the womb and checked each fetus at conception and again before birth, why don’t they believe that God also put a “prime” sign on each straight, lesbian, gay and transgender born into this world. Wasn’t the birth with His approval?

The World Is Awash With Religious Sex Problems

According to Genesis, God created everything. So we have little creatures that reproduce asexually. Other creatures such as worms reproduce by changing themselves sexually – if necessary. Evangelicals reproduce sexually. But why does practically every species have gay, lesbian and transgender beings? There are gay elephants, giraffes and fish. When Noah added two dinosaurs to his collection to escape the flood, chances are one was gay. Two male king penguins recently raised a chick in captivity. Monkeys, gorillas and man have about the same ratio of gays.

Science has made great progress over the last 5,000 years. Science brings up thousands of new questions each year, and no one in the religious business seems to be able to answer them.

Evangelicals have recently opened the Creation Museum in Kentucky based on Biblical references that God created the universe in six days about 6,000 years ago. Recent scientific evidence indicates the Earth is at least 14 billion years old and may be a lot older. The Hubble telescope opens up the beauty and wonders of our universe. And the Europeans are working on what they call the “42-meter Extremely Large Telescope” which may end up being 100 times as sensitive as the Hubble. It is designed to explore the origins of the first stars and galaxies and to see whether there are other planets just like Earth roaming the Heavens. It may also investigate the “dark matter” that may make the universe tick.

Did T-Rex Have Neanderthals For Lunch?

Isn’t “religion” making religion irrelevant by refusing to even look at what science is revealing to us? Near the entrance to the Creation Museum, there is a display of a young girl feeding a carrot to a squirrel and two huge dinosaurs standing in the background. Science says dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, about 61 million years before man appeared on Earth. That’s a big “whoops!”

The museum preachers say that the dinosaurs died in 2348 B.C. at the time of the Great Flood. Actually, in “real” history the Bible thumpers flood was at the same time the first libraries were established in Egypt; epic poetry was written in Babylonia, celebrating the re-creation of the world; Egyptian literature expressed lamentations and skepticism about the meaning of life; and the bow and arrow was first used in war. I wonder if Tyrannosaurus Rex was trained by somebody to serve as a war dinosaur as elephants were trained by the Asians as war elephants?

No wonder Sanford seems confused. His conservative beliefs, his faith (whatever it is) and his marriage vows seem to be based on a foundation of cherry jello and dino dung.

After All, Says The Vatican, What Are Nuns Really For?

As if the Vatican doesn’t have enough problems with its intransigent attitudes toward all aspects of sex, whether abuse by priests; the use of contraceptives; the possibility of women as priests, bishops, and cardinals; or even a Pope named Sue, now the guys in long black skirts are investigating American nuns!

They are bringing back the Inquisition to question the loyalty and service of women who have basically served as the Church’s waste management service, its cheap teacher corps and the maid service for countless priests. Sister Sandra M. Schneiders, professor emerita at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkley, seems to have it nailed: “They think of us as an ecclesiastical work force, whereas we are religious, we’re living the life of total dedication to Christ, and out of that flows a profound concern for the good will of all humanity. So our vision of our lives, and their vision of us as a work force, are just not on the same planet.”

This is the most polite “stuff it” I have heard directed toward the tired old grey men of the Vatican.

Nuns did most of the real work in the hospitals, schools and other institutions of the Catholic Church in this country while priests and bishops talked, talked and talked and avoided the tough questions.

Since the so-called reforms of the Second Vatican Council, nuns have decided they will not be the mules, cooks and floor scrubbers of the church anymore. Nuns have been very active in organizations that advocate the ordination of women and married men as priests. Why were there 180,000 nuns in 1965 and only 60,000 today? There are about 340 congregations of nuns in the U.S. Some of them have been neglected by the Vatican and are quite destitute.

Why Charles Darwin Had Blue Eyes

History and science are formidable hurdles for religious fundamentalists such as Sexy Sanford to overcome. The world is catching up and is winning. The Catholic Church is having another Inquisition to slap down the nuns who want and deserve to play a prominent role in the church. No doubt nuns will be on the altars, giving the sermons and raising the bread and wine in worship – some day, if not soon.

While preparing this column I was also reading a National Geographic article about Charles Darwin. To illustrate how science is trumping old-time religion, there is a paragraph explaining how Darwin ended up with blue eyes. I don’t understand even half of it, but some humans do. And that’s the wonder of the free-will mind. How Darwin ended up with blue eyes was explained by scientists in 2008:

“(We) have found the genetic mutation common to all blue-eyed people. The mutation is a single letter change, from A to G, on the long arm of the chromosome 15, which dampens the expression of a gene called OCA2, involved in the manufacture of the pigment that darkens the eyes. By comparing the DNA of Danes with that of the people from Turkey and Jordan, (we) calculated that this mutation happened only about 6,000-10,000 years ago… in a particular individual somewhere around the Black Sea. So Darwin may have gotten his blue eyes because of a single misspelled letter in the DNA in the baby of a Neolithic farmer.”

Trying to squash science and reason is like trying to un-ring a bell – or like Sexy Sanford finding a soul mate when he already had one.