John Ensign on Marriage

by Harry on June 16, 2009

Its good to see that John Ensign is consistent on the issues: voting for a constitutional ban on marriage for same sex couples, and taking direct action against the institution of marriage for opposite-sex couples.

{ 44 comments }

1

k 06.17.09 at 1:09 am

Maybe he just took his support for “Biblical marriage” a bit too seriously.

2

TONYPATRICA 06.17.09 at 3:18 am

ensign you can’t be letting that head do your thinking however congratulations are in order at least you got the right gender!!!!!

3

Matt McIrvin 06.17.09 at 4:17 am

I see he’s making the traditional face.

4

StevenAttewell 06.17.09 at 5:55 am

5

Luciano 06.17.09 at 11:21 am

I don’t see how his private life is anybody’s business or why he should apologize to the public for what he did in the sphere of his intimacy. Just like gay people’s lives shouldn’t be judged by others, including him.

6

cod3fr3ak 06.17.09 at 12:12 pm

Whats amazing is that the most vocal opponents of “moral” issues are almost invariably the worst perpetrators of said offenses.

Does anyone here think his “moral” supporters will call him out on this?

7

snuh 06.17.09 at 12:22 pm

at the top of that on the issues page it says ensign “Voted YES on defining unborn child as eligible for SCHIP” but, further down, that he “Voted NO on adding 2 to 4 million children to SCHIP eligibility.” i am thinking the consistency of his views on marriage are the least of his problems.

8

Matt 06.17.09 at 1:06 pm

There are two obvious and perfectly reasonable explanations for this sort of behavior:

1) He values traditional families so much that he wanted to have more than one.

2) The fact that gays are getting married in some places, and that Nevada has considered giving some recognition to gay relationships, has already made him unable to see traditional marriage as anything of value at all, so why not go ahead and have an affair with a married staff member (the spouse of whom was also a staff member)?

9

Rich B. 06.17.09 at 1:44 pm

While gay marriage is certainly “same sex,” do we really want to call the other kind “opposite sex marriage”? They are different sexes, but men and women are no more “opposite” than chocolate and vanilla ice cream are “opposite flavors.”

10

kato 06.17.09 at 2:04 pm

A somewhat simpler but equally reasonable explanation for Ensign’s behavior: he’s a hypocritical tool. Seriously, though, anyone unfortunate enough to have experienced the Nevada lifestyle for even a short period of time might agree that the soul-draining heat, dust and boredom can make even the strongest person go loco.

11

Gdr 06.17.09 at 2:48 pm

Rich B: clearly what we need a ban on man/antiman and woman/antiwoman marriages. They could destroy civilization as we know it!

12

lemuel pitkin 06.17.09 at 3:26 pm

I don’t see how his private life is anybody’s business or why he should apologize to the public for what he did in the sphere of his intimacy. Just like gay people’s lives shouldn’t be judged by others, including him.

Yes. It’s easy to mock Ensign, and it’s entirely appropriate to do so. We should mock him relentlessly.

At the same time, I wish that, for once, a politician in one of these situations would refuse to make a public apology and just say, “It’s none of your business. You elected me to legislate, not baby-sit your niece. Get over it.” When Eliot Spitzer resigned last year, saying it was his duty to think about his family first, it drove me crazy. No it’s f*cking not! There are three of them and there are 20 million of us New Yorkers. What about your duty to us? Just suck it up and do your job.

(Sorry for the rant, but the current situation in the NY Senate has infuriated me all over again that Spitzer surrendered to the moronic inferno without a fight.)

13

J 06.17.09 at 3:48 pm

Ensign is just another endless example of a moral fake. Hope people

learn more before voting for such hubris. In response to the comment

from Kato concerning the Nevada lifestyle. I have been in many other

towns, and Nevada ranks high in interests and many things to do. Many

other places have nothing to do and are boring. Try really to spend time

here, instead of writing from an opinion thought. Your rant sounds like

many others who could not make it there.

14

Mike Licht 06.17.09 at 4:13 pm

John Ensign is a veterinarian. Is “Neuter and Spay the Only Way”?

See:

http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/john-ensign-promise-keeper/

15

Stuart 06.17.09 at 4:21 pm

While gay marriage is certainly “same sex,” do we really want to call the other kind “opposite sex marriage”? They are different sexes, but men and women are no more “opposite” than chocolate and vanilla ice cream are “opposite flavors.”

Mixed sex marriage maybe?

16

klk 06.17.09 at 4:35 pm

I always did say I had a mixed marriage, because my wife is a west coaster, but now it’s got a new meaning, maybe.

17

CJColucci 06.17.09 at 6:46 pm

My wife, who is black, and I, who am white, were at a Christmas party hosted by a lesbian couple. (Maybe if we get a working Senate in NY they can get married.) At one point, most of the other couples had left and another group had yet to arrive. I looked around at those still at the party and said (quietly) to my wife, “we’ve often been the only mixed couple in the room, but usually for different reasons.”

18

Jack Long 06.17.09 at 7:49 pm

Let’s stay on point here, please. The issue here as I see it is the hypocrisy of a moral crusading politician getting caught doing that which he is so against. He has a public history of putting himself on the side of the moral posers. He deserves to reap what he has sewn.

19

MarkUp 06.17.09 at 8:31 pm

(Sorry for the rant, but the current situation in the NY Senate has infuriated me all over again that Spitzer surrendered to the moronic inferno without a fight.)

Spitzer may br sitting back thinking or knowing what was coming and took the best door out.

Of course if the Repubs move quickly for censure and impeachment of Ensign…

20

John Quiggin 06.17.09 at 10:22 pm

In Melbourne, mixed marriages are between Collingwood and Geelong supporters.

BTW, the economic component of marriage wasn’t neglected by Ensign. I expect that the payments to his partner’s son will sink him in the end.

21

Jim A 06.17.09 at 11:32 pm

Ensign is also the only Pentecostal in the Senate (he belongs to the church founded by Aimee McPherson). Pentecostals believe “once saved, always saved,” which can lead to a certain antinomianism in ethical practice.

22

joel hanes 06.17.09 at 11:50 pm

I don’t see how his private life is anybody’s business

Ensign is estopped from that defense;
he called for Clinton to resign because of Lewinsky.

23

lemuel pitkin 06.18.09 at 12:57 am

I’m seeing comments like 18 on various liberal blogs and I don’t get it. If the rule is that politicians’ private lives are private, except for those who’ve made unctuous or hypocritical comments on the family, well then, the rule is just that politicians’ private lives *aren’t* private.

Really, the view among some liberals that “family values” politicians should be subject to a higher level of personal scrutiny is just as silly as the view among some conservatives that they should be subject to a lower one. No, there are no special rules for Ensign, in either direction.

24

sy 06.18.09 at 2:21 am

promise keepers…born again…its like a railroad crossing with the baricade going down and the lights flashing red…ding ding ding..WATCH OUT

25

Harry 06.18.09 at 5:03 am

Ensign made his private life public by making public comments about it. He has revealed himself as a hypocrite, and I see nothing wrong with taking him to task on that.

Clinton, by contrast, lied to his friends, his cabinet, and his party, and abused their trust by alling on them all to expend political capital defending him. I can see why family values voters might forgive Ensign, though I hope that the pointing out that he actually has damaged the institution he pretends to defend might give them pause for thought. I am still, after all this time, mystified why anyone forgives Clinton, but then I never liked him in the first place.

26

Blake 06.18.09 at 5:19 am

We all have our set of beliefs just like the Senator, and sometimes we make decisions which violate these beliefs, we try to do better next time – we’ve all made bad decisons and hopefully learn from them. These matters, however, are private and should remain that way.

27

Righteous Bubba 06.18.09 at 5:56 am

I don’t see how his private life is anybody’s business

He had a press conference about it.

28

alex 06.18.09 at 8:18 am

It’s not ‘private’. It’s hypocrisy and deceit with a very public component. One cannot be a very public advocate of a certain set of alleged moral values, and contravene those values, and have the contravention ruled irrelevant because of ‘privacy’. If politicians like this talked about the difficulty for people of living up to consistent moral [or any] standards, and the need for tolerance, forgiveness, support and second chances, maybe they’d deserve those things themselves. But they don’t, it’s blame, label, blame, label, all the way. So when what goes around, comes around, that’s effing karma, buddy!

29

John Quiggin 06.18.09 at 8:27 am

The kinds of behavior that would (and do) count as hypocritical enough to justify outing/cause concern vary according to one’s political stance. For example, legal but aggressive tax avoidance is clearly problematic for a social democrat, much less so in the case of a market liberal.

I don’t think “making unctuous statements about the family” violates an assumed right to privacy unless the person concerned asserts that particular family arrangements are superior to others, and acts in a way contrary to this assertion. In the modern/liberal understanding, we are all members of families and all family arrangements are presumed good unless proven otherwise.

30

juju 06.18.09 at 9:12 am

@18: “He deserves to reap what he has sewn.”

I think the best he can do is rip it…

31

alex 06.18.09 at 10:07 am

“the person concerned asserts that particular family arrangements are superior to others” – like, maybe, voting against same-sex marriage?

32

Tracy W 06.18.09 at 10:49 am

cod3fr3ak: Whats amazing is that the most vocal opponents of “moral” issues are almost invariably the worst perpetrators of said offenses.

Perhaps that’s why they are vocal opponents – they are on some level, perhaps not consciously, aware that they have such impulses within themselves.
C.S. Lewis said in one of his books that he had nothing to say about the sin of gambling because he never felt tempted to do it himself and thus didn’t feel qualified to comment on it in others. (I’m not a Christian, but C.S. Lewis was a good writer).

33

Salient 06.18.09 at 10:50 am

Hmm. I learned everything I need to know about this issue from King Henry V:

The mercy that was quick in us but late,
By your own counsel is suppress’d and kill’d:
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.

34

alex 06.18.09 at 11:17 am

“C.S. Lewis was a good writer” – for certain values of ‘good’, generally not related to ‘subtle’.

35

notedscholar 06.18.09 at 12:05 pm

This has always been on the way to my position, which is that people should not be allowed to get married. Either that or they should be forced to get married. These people clearly haven’t heard of the 14th amendment.

NS

36

Rich 06.18.09 at 2:30 pm

Nice sequencing of entries. First, ethicists are not particularly ethical. Second, politicians who run on a platform of morality are not particularly moral.

37

Sebastian 06.18.09 at 3:18 pm

Subtle is overrated. Especially as many people have trouble with obvious.

Ensign’s case being a good example.
Bad: cheating on your wife
Worse: cheating with an employee in your office.
Obviously Ridiculous: cheating with an employee in your office, whose husband and son also works there while campaigning on family values.

Though I guess subtle might be the suggestion that he appears to value that family…

38

mds 06.18.09 at 5:07 pm

Well, regardless, I’m going to continue mocking Senator Ensign’s blatant hypocrisy and decry his political stances that have done actual damage to gay couples. (And do the same with the latter for the current administration.) If a law is introduced in Congress criminalizing adultery, or the Senate moves to expel Senator Ensign from the chamber, I’ll definitely protest. But since all that many of us are doing is pointing out that yet another mote inspector is sporting a rather large eye beam, I’m not going to feel all that guilty. In the meantime, Senator Ensign should feel no need to resign. Let the voters of Nevada decide if the disconnect between his legislative record and his apparent beliefs is worth removing him.

39

Harry 06.18.09 at 8:57 pm

I don’t agree with you, alex, about C.S. Lewis — the fiction is certainly unsubtle, but his little essays in Christian apologetics are full of surprises (about marriage, psycholanalysis, what it takes to be moral, etc). Not deep, on the whole, but interesting, and intellectually honest. Of course, the guy wouldn’t have got any references to Fred Kite or even, I dare say, Bluebottle, but you can’t have everything.

40

roac 06.18.09 at 9:32 pm

For my money, Lewis’s best fiction by a good long shot is Till We Have Faces. The questions raised in Narnia and the sci-fi trilogy presuppose answers to be found Christian doctrine. In TWHF, not necessarily. You can read the book from an atheist perspective and still feel that you’ve learned something about yourself.

41

Erin 06.19.09 at 4:14 am

I find the discussion about whether their private lives are none of our business, our at least not professionally relevant, to be incredibly interesting. But leaving aside the ideals of whether or not it *should* be, this seems to be a case of the chickens coming home to roost, and roost, and roost. When the GOP put Clinton’s extramarital affair on trial as a relevant part of his professional performance, I wonder if they knew how many gay-bashing gay republicans or promise-keeping philanderers they had among their ranks.

42

Erin 06.19.09 at 4:21 am

@lemuel pitkin: I dont think cases of family values are always the cases in which family privacy is necessarily violated. I still believe that is a domain that was made politically available by the public success against Clinton for his affair, and therefore still remains a very common violation that the American public cares about. However, important variation in the response exists in how the opposition deals with the issue. Outside of Illinois I’m not sure how many people followed Obama’s early treatment of Republican opponent Ryan’s family disaster (kinky sex) but Obama was at the forefront of shutting down any attempts to make details of Ryan’s disaster public knowledge for the sake of his wife and kids.

43

alex 06.19.09 at 8:54 am

I have a hard time considering any effort at Xian apologetics to be genuinely subtle, as opposed to just wriggly, but there you go, diff’rent strokes…

44

cod3fr3ak 06.19.09 at 11:37 am

I read the Screwtape Letters and didn’t like it very much. I found most of his arguments to be a bit thin.

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