By now on the blogosphere, Mike Duvall is becoming old news. But to re-cap for anyone who missed it, California state assemblyman Duvall is the most recent "family values" man to get caught on tape at a session of the legislature bragging about his kinky affairs with two different women - including at least one energy lobbyist.
It makes a good news story because it's explicitly sexy; it gives media sources like CBS an excuse to print: "She wears little eye-patch underwear, so I can see her eye patches. So, the other day she came here with her underwear, Thursday. And so, we had made love Wednesday, a lot. And so she'll she's all, I am going up and down the stairs and you're dripping out of me." But while the country gets off on voyeurism of one California assemblyman, what's legitimately disgusting about him is his voting record. Even now, after the scandal, you can read on his dispatch to constituents: "As a supporter of Prop 8, I will be among the state legislators committed to defending California voters' definition of marriage." He has 100% approval ratings from the California Republican Assembly - whose website touts on the "What We Believe" page: " We believe that the traditional American family, defined as any persons related by blood, marriage of a man and a woman and/or adoption, is the cornerstone of our American society, and the government is duty bound to protect the integrity of the family unit through legislation and taxation policies," and from the Capitol Resource Institute - which issues official statements like, "All students should be safe at school, but promoting safety and promoting multisexuality are not actually the same thing." (Maybe no one has ever told them about the prevalence of peer violence against gay and transgendered teens. But I doubt it.)
So Duvall's a hypocrite. But the crazy thing is, haven't we seen this before? Like, a lot? The Capitol Resource Institute's website has issued a statement: "Assemblyman Michael Duvall... has been the focus of much media attention in the last 24 hours based on revelations of apparent extramarital affairs. In many of these stories, Capitol Resource Institute was cited as giving Assemblyman Duvall high marks for his pro-family voting record. It is always disappointing when a champion of traditional values does not practice the same in his private life..."
In no particular order, the list of their disappointments would include: Mark Sanford. Larry Craig. Bristol Palin - who won't be marrying Levi Johnston after all. Bob Allen. Ted Haggard. John Ensign. David Vitter. Eliot Spitzer. Chip Pickering. Vito Fossella. Paul Stanley.
Just how many examples do we need before this constitutes a trend? With such an impressive track-record of hypocrisy, and the scandals becoming cliché, why do the people who vote for "family values" trust any of the "family values" politicians? They love to argue that sex should be legally restricted to heterosexual monogamous marriages - but they can't follow it themselves. And logically, if the "family values" movement can't uphold what it calls "family values" (mostly: intolerance and mandated ignorance), how do they expect to criminalize the rest of us for at least being honest? If there were anything "natural" or "traditional" about restricting sex to heterosexual monogamous marriages, wouldn't it be easier for the movement's leaders to actually live that way?
Half the news stories about Mike Duvall specifically quote him as saying, "So, I am getting into spanking her. Yeah, I like it. I like spanking her. She goes, 'I know you like spanking me.' I said, 'Yeah! Because you're such a bad girl!'" And personally, I think, okay, so the line's preetty cheesy. When my lovers and friends spank me, I generally prefer being called a "slut" or a "whore" - because I find it hard to take the phrase "bad girl" seriously. But to each their own, right?
So I'm reminded of a particularly good column from the Savage Love archives, in which a reader responded to the Larry Craig scandal with concern that anyone at all would be arrested for hitting on other men. To which Dan Savage responded: "There were complaints about that particular bathroom at the Minneapolis airport, and the police did what the police are supposed to do when there are complaints—they responded... It wouldn't be a career-destroying event for an out gay man today—like, say, a George Michael. It would, however, be career destroying for gay-bashing, straight-identified hypocrites like, say, Senator Craig."
Won't it be an exciting day when the people who vote for these hypocrites notice this pattern of hypocrisy so egregious that even the Capitol Resource Institute has to acknowledge it?
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