Repression and Republicans

On the case of Larry Craig, David Freddoso wonders "Why is it that Republicans β€” Craig, Mark Foley, and David Vitter β€” are the ones who keep getting caught in sex scandals nowadays?" No doubt some of it is random clustering (why does that phrase suddenly sound dirty?); I don't think the Vitter case speaks to any deep truth about a particular Republican predilection for prostitutes, for instance. And some of it is that there's a greater incentive for the media to go digging through the dirty laundry of politicians who trumpet their support for "family values," because of the hypocrisy factor. But it also stands to reason that the party that's associated with conservative beliefs about sex, marriage and family would include a higher percentage of the sort of people who try to avoid acting on their own homosexual inclinations for the sake of those beliefs - and that this higher rate of repression would breed a higher rate of embarrassing scandals.

The contrast between Craig - or Ted Haggard - and Jim McGreevey is instructive, in this regard. McGreevey was conducting long-term affairs with men, which suggests a person who had attained a certain comfort with his homosexuality, even as he attempted to keep it a secret. Whereas Craig and Haggard both seem to have sought out gay encounters in as furtive a fashion as possible, as someone would who's giving in to what they consider an immoral temptation, rather than merely acting on a desire they would prefer to keep hidden from the public. And not coincidentally, given this difference in how they approached their sexual desires - and the kind of scandals that ensued - both Craig and Haggard are Republicans, while McGreevey is a liberal Democrat.