Morality Plays
When I read about the scandal involving Indianapolis State Representative Phil Hinkle I was as shocked and surprised as a lot of other people. The Indianapolis Star has reported on e-mail exchanges between Hinkle and an 18-year old male which infer Hinkle offered him $80 via Craigslist spend time together at the JW Marriott downtown. You can find the details here.
Now before we go further a little full disclosure. The State Rep and I have had a very good relationship over the years. He was a frequent guest on my former radio program when it came to government reform issues and he and his wife Barbara were guests at my wedding nearly two years ago. With that said, if this all turns out to be true, I frankly don’t see how Hinkle can survive this episode politically and so he should go ahead and issue the public apology, resign from the Statehouse and go work to rebuild his relationship with his family and work out his personal issues. That’s the small picture.
Here is the bigger picture. While Hinkle was not a “rabid Bible thumper” I argue that these types of scandals will always hit Republicans and Conservatives harder than liberals and Democrats because of the usual Republican/Conservative stands on moral issues like homosexuality and same-sex marriage. And when individuals yell the loudest about defending “traditional marriage” and they do it with an almost a Torquemada-esque manner, as soon as something like this erupts all you know what breaks loose.
This is not to say that we should not adopt governmental policies that protect and strengthen families. I’ve always argued the best way to protect families is protect their pocketbooks from over taxation and increase economic development, protect their homes and streets from criminals with effective public safety and protect their children’s education by giving them more choice and accountability. Homosexuality has nothing to do with any of that. Unfortunately, there is significant vocal segment in GOP/Conservative circles that just can’t live and let live. And when that attitude is prevalent throughout the political selection and policy process, not only do you almost encourage situations like these to occur, because instead of allowing people to be who they are, you drive them underground and usually they don’t surface unless there is a major scandal.
It is high time for my GOP/Conservative friends to really do some soul searching on its policies and stands on these types of issues. Yesterday it was Mark Souder. Today it’s Phil Hinkle. Who knows who it will be tomorrow.
