February 19, 2004 - Sex scandals abound in this political year. No, I’m not talking about the abortive Drudge-Rush-Murdock crawl through the sewers from here to Kenya. It is more basic than that. Leaving the private conduct of Presidential aspirants aside; sex scandals strike at several of our most basic public institutions.

Let me list a few.

Frederick Maryland is all a titter as its city government has been ordered to make public the evidence it seized in connection with the arrest of the operator of an “escort service”. The evidence consisted of the Maryland Madam’s black book; surveillance videos and some crude homemade porno flicks distributed on her web-site; and computer files containing e-mails, some of which contain applications for employment. While titillated citizens pour over the salacious material seeking grist for the gossip mill one tidbit stands out. An e-mail to the Madam from “Bam-Bam” seeking work on her staff as an exotic dancer originated from a House of Representative web-site computer. Based upon a subsequent e-mail in which the Madam refers to “Bam-Bam” it appears that the applicant was a male. The image of a Member of Congress or a Congressional staffer moonlighting as a cut-rate Chippendale should give America pause.

Out in Colorado revelations of using lap dances to recruit high-school seniors to play for the Buffalos has gotten a lot of ink, and the scandal is reaching into the athletic departments of many schools across the country. An article in this morning’s Chicago Tribune suggests that practice even extends to the staid perennial doormat of the Big Ten, Northwestern. Reacting to the claim that one of his players had raped another one, the Buffalo coach got his proverbial in a wringer by saying that the victim was a girl and that she couldn’t kick anyway.
Of a second rape accusation against one of his players he said that he backed the accused Buffalo 100%. It got him a suspension – with pay of course.

But the core sexual issue that cuts the Conservative base to the quick is the growing trend to legitimize or at least decriminalize committed relationships between homosexuals. It began with the Supreme Court striking down a statute that permitted Texas cops to peer into bedroom to detect and prosecute sexual conduct between two consenting adults. It continued with Vermont’s recognition of civil unions between two people of the same sex. Then the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found that the right to be married was a not to be denied to homosexual couples under that State’s Constitution. Then came San Francisco and the spate of marriage licenses issued to spite the law. It strikes at another time honored tradition in which the well off partner in a same-sex relationship would “adopt” the adult other, thereby legitimizing the bond that they had to one another.

Now these are important issues, much more important than the insignificant deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan; much more important than the flight of jobs overseas and the manipulated unemployment statistics. The President is “troubled” by these developments but is biding his time for supporting a Defense of Marriage Amendment. He is waiting for Karl to tell him when it is time to roll out a new product.

Meanwhile the burning question facing America is this – who is Bam-Bam?