I don't really have any interest in getting into the incoherence of today's Ross Douthat column on the importance of stigmatizing single mothers and sexually irresponsible folks, but I don't think Douthat has any interest in getting into that, either, unless it serves his political purposes. Here's his standard:
[C]ontemporary America doesn't seem willing to accept sexual stigma, period. We simply don't have the stomach for permanently ostracizing the sexually irresponsible — be they a pregnant starlet, a thrice-divorced tycoon, or even a prostitute-hiring politician.
Now, give the man credit, he's certainly tried to ostracize David Vittter, before saying he'd vote for the prostitute-frequenting Louisiana senator over Barack Obama, given the chance. I also look forward to Douthat's attempts to ostracize Newt Gingrich, the twice-divorced, affair-having former speaker of the House. Here's Douthat on Gingrich last year:
It's true that Gingrich tends to be overrated (by conservatives, that is) as a font of new ideas, but I still would have liked to see him in the race -- not only because he'd be vastly entertaining in the debates, but because his standing within the movement positions him to give voice to certain truths without coming in for quite the ritual denunciations that Huckabee and McCain have summoned up.
Doesn't seem like any kind of ostracizing I'm familiar with. But since Gingrich has only been divorced twice, I guess it's cool. No doubt Douthat will plead, as he did in his post on Vitter, that "regretting the passing of a particular moral standard does not require one to always vote as if that standard were still in place." But it certainly seems to allow Douthat to shame people as if the standard were still in place. It's remarkably hands-free hypocrisy: When I stigmatize people, I'm just regretting the passing of moral standards. And when I support people who violate my moral standards, well, that standard is past. Right?
-- Tim Fernholz
