Years ago, my father and I had a vicious argument regarding President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. He was of the mind that it did not matter. I felt quite the opposite. He made excuse after excuse for the President with ever increasing passion. Finally I realized what was going on. He wasn't forgiving the President. He was forgiving himself for having cheated on my mother countless times. If the President of the United States cheated on his wife, then he, as a regular man, could not be expected to do any different.
Now I am living in San Francisco where Mayor Gaving Newsome has just admitted to having an affair with a subordinate and nobody really seems to care. Many people are saying that what goes on in his private life is his business. That's a child's argument. A person's personal life certainly impacts how he does his job and if his job involves doling out multi-million dollar contracts, then his personal life matters even more. Poor judgment in one area will reflect in another. An old Greek saying states that he who is a righteous master of his household will be a righteous statesman. That's no different here.
Then there are others who say that it's just sex and no big deal. That would be true if he had picked up a girl at a bar and took her home. That would be true if he wasn't married at the time. Taken free from context, it was just sex. But removing it from context is simply ridiculous. First of all, he was married. And to make matters worse, his adultery partner was married too- to Newsome's good friend no less. You have to look at his transgression in context. To do otherwise is to misunderstand the event.
Fidelity matters. When you take an oath forsaking all others, it means something. There are cultures where the taking of mistresses is common but even there, it is not considered virtuous. Whether or not it is okay to cheat on your wife, it is universally agreed that it is more moral not to. For myself, I will not engage in a partnership with anyone who cheats on his wife. The way I see it, if a man can break the oath that he has taken with the one he is supposed to love above all others, what can he do to me? How can I ever trust his sincerity or lack thereof? Either every oath you take means something or they all mean nothing.
And he cheated with the wife of his good friend-- a friend that was running his campaign. What does it say about a man who cheats with a friend's wife? It says that he's a narcissist-- that he thinks he's above any rules of civility. It says that he has the weakest character imaginable. In most places in the world, this is a killing offense. It's a betrayal of the worst kind.
If Gavin Newsome was a businessman perhaps it would matter less. There, he would only be responsible to his shareholders and his Board of Directors. His power would mostly be limited to his employees. But Newsome is the Mayor of San Francisco. His decisions affect how I live my life greatly and I simply cannot trust such a man to make good decisions. He affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. I don't think it's unfair to expect him to conduct himself with more propriety. While I've never much agreed with most of his policy choices, I accepted him as my democratically elected mayor and gave him the respect he deserved. Unlike most people, a difference in opinion about policy doesn't make me resort to ad hominem attacks. I still don't hate him but the truth is that he has lost any moral authority he may have possessed. And if that doesn't matter to you, you should seriously ask yourself why.
