John McCain's "Biker Family Values"
Thursday, August 07, 2008
The Rev. Dr. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite writes today in The Washington Post:
I never thought I would write these words, but where is James Dobson of Focus on the Family when you really need him? Why are the "family values" evangelicals silent when John McCain campaigns at the famously raunchy Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and suggests that his wife might compete in the "Miss Buffalo Chip Beauty Pageant--Bikinis on the Beach?" According to Jim Caple of ESPN, this is "essentially a topless beauty pageant. And occasionally bottomless, too." I'm absolutely certain this does not reflect the kind of "Christ-centered marriage" about which Dobson so frequently lectures.
Checking the websites of both Focus on the Family and The Family Research Council today, however, there is no mention at all of McCain's lack of respect, even in jest, for his own wife. "With a little luck, she [his wife, Cindy] could be the only woman ever to serve as both the first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip" McCain told the bikers who revved the engines of their motorcycles to show approval. In fact, there is no mention of this whatsoever by the "family values" crowd. It was up to The Wall Street Journal to observe "John McCain appeared yesterday evening with bikini-clad women donning leather chaps and roaming an open field littered with beer cans."
Family values do matter in a candidate and these need not be the values of the Focus on the Family. But if evangelicals like Dobson are going to support McCain, it is fair to ask them to act on their own principles and object when the candidate is so far out of line in regard to what basically any Christian would regard as decent marital values. In truth, Dobson is said to just be 'considering' endorsing McCain, so I suggest he take the biker rally appearance into account in making that final decision.
As Dr. Thistlethwaite writes, it's the hypocrisy that matters. But James Dobson doesn't appear bothered with such little things as moral consistency.