The U.S. is supposedly populated by folks who adhere to “Judeo-Christian” values.
Gossip is prohibited by Leviticus, a book purportedly followed by both Jews and Christians (see Lashon hara for a summary of what Leviticus says about gossip).
Yet U.S. media is filled with gossip about President Trump and women who might have had sex with him (example from the New York Times).
I don’t remember this kind of article back in the 1970s, except perhaps in some supermarket tabloids. Can we infer from this that Americans have given up any goal of following the rules set forth in the Hebrew Bible?
Maybe one could argue that this is somehow actual “news” and not merely gossip? Good Housekeeping says “Only 48% of married women want regular sex after four years.” Thus roughly half of married Americans, unless they have decided to give up on sex altogether, would be candidates for an article on the subject of “Married Person X is having sex with Person Y and Person Y is not the spouse of Person X.” How can something be considered “news” when it is this common?
A journalist who describes himself as a “conservative Christian” recently posted one of these articles about Trump to Facebook: “Understanding Conservative Christian Silence on Donald Trump’s Porngate” (National Review). I responded with “Which part of the New Testament requires a Christian to keep track of others’ sexual activities? The Hebrew Bible specifically prohibits gossiping about other people. (See “Gossip, Rumors and Lashon Hara” for example.) As with most of my questions on Facebook, nobody answered! What is the answer? Are Christians allowed to gossip freely?
Or do we just add this to the list of stuff in the Bible that Americans don’t care about, e.g., Leviticus on male homosexuality, which has turned into “Gus Kenworthy’s kiss with boyfriend a ‘moment to celebrate'” (CNN). (But if being gay at the Olympics is actually a “moment to celebrate,” why aren’t Blades of Glory-style male-male teams permitted for skating and ice dancing? Why force athletes to promote a heteronormative message?) “Thou shalt not commit adultery” is in the Ten Commandments (Exodus), but in America today the married person who says “I really am enjoying having sex with my neighbor’s spouse” can be rewarded with 50 percent of the partner’s assets and 80 percent of the partner’s income going forward (varies a lot by state, though!).
If adultery is profitable, male homosexuality is celebrated, and we can be proud of our commitment to gossiping and keeping track of another adult’s sex life, what does it mean when someone in the 21st century U.S. calls himself or herself “Christian” or “Jewish”?
Everyone who voted for Trump knows that he is a serial womanizer on his third wife and knows (or believes) that he probably had plenty of women on the side. Nobody was voting for the guy as a standard bearer for the monogamous family man. Everyone voted for his platform — anti-PC, anti-ILLEGAL immigration, anti-socialist, pro-American, pro-business, pro-gun, pro low-taxes, pro-life, pro religious expression — and the believe that he will govern as he campaigned.
Thus far he has delivered. This is especially so for the religious voters — they have never had such an openly and apologetically pro-life and pro-religion President in the last 50 years. And, that is enough for them whether or not he is twice divorced and fucked women on the side.
And yet eunuchs are generally portrayed positively in both the Old (Daniel) and New (Matthew, Acts) Testaments.
As for the condemning of homosexuals, consider this commentary on Paul’s letter to the Romans:
http://thefederalist.com/2016/06/17/new-york-times-claims-romans-calls-for-execution-of-gays/
But these are quibbles I present against your main argument about the tectonic shifts in our social thinking. Our moral landscape is turned so topsy-turvy that we need the genius of Gilbert and Sullivan to properly portray it.
I think that you have it backwards, Philip. The story is that a millions of Republican Christians don’t care about Trump’s sins and two guys who write for the National Review are concerned about that. Based on your interpretation of scripture, that’s great news. Of course, as Dwight states, it’s all about politics. Most of those same Christian conservatives were enraged about Bill Clinton 20 years ago during the Lewinsky scandal.
@vince: I think it’s safe to say that without the Clinton administration there would never have been a Trump administration. Can the press really mock the Mike Pences of the world for their sexual mores and then turn around and be shocked the voters accepted Trump?
I can’t imagine what you think Bill Clinton did that led to Trump. If Clinton had taken the position of Richard Gephardt and the majority of the House Democrats and been more loyal to the unions and opposed NAFTA, it’s possible that the Democrats would have retained the loyalty of the working class in the Rust Belt. Thus so much of the working class wouldn’t have seen the two parties as Tweedledee and Tweedledum and voted for someone who appeared to be different from previous politicians.
You last sentence doesn’t make sense. Some commentators, not the monolithic “press”, criticized Pence, but not for his marital fidelity. It would be odd for voters to get upset about that and then go and vote for the guy who bragged about grabbing women between the legs. Finally, I believe that the mocking of Pence occurred after the election, though I may be mistaken about that.