by James Lynne

Created on: March 17, 2009   Last Updated: March 21, 2009

Politicians should be held to the standard of safeguarding the public welfare. That is their responsibility. Religious morals, however, related to private sexual preference, religious practice, and theism are inappropriate moral standards by which to measure public servants. Morals related to fiscal integrity, rule of law, and policy effectiveness are the higher standard by which politicians should be held accountable. These standards, not religious ideology, are the ones that preserve the public welfare in a free society.

Because politicians represent the public trust, they should be held to a higher moral standard. That moral standard, however, must be related to the role and purpose for which they serve. It is gross oversimplification to claim that a politician should be honest, pure, and chaste as a measure of his morals. Religious morality is not a measure of competence in office. It is a superficial measure of the politician's worth to the public.

What does it mean to be "moral?" More than that, what rational outcome could be expected from establishing a "layered" standard of morals in any society? Is it reasonable to say that citizens are excused from being moral while politicians, due to their social stature are not? Should the public be held to a lower moral standard than the public servant? Each person, citizen or servant, in an enlightened society has the responsibility to follow a code of acceptable moral, ethical behavior, including politicians.

Holding politicians to a higher moral standard is not about examining their personal lives with a fine toothed comb and then attacking their imperfections. Narrowly defined religious morals could trap the best of us while allowing the craftiest of us to escape. Holding politicians to a higher moral standard is neither about religious ideology nor narrowly defined sexual mores. It is about the greater purpose of the politician's responsibility to the electorate.

To religious fundamentalists, "moral standards" tend to refer to sexual behavior. Often, religious fundamentalism has difficulty viewing the world in its larger context while simultaneously demanding that the world conform to it. It wants to define moral standard as narrowly defined Christian, religious beliefs. Fundamentalism often loudly decries the politician guilty of a sexual peccadillo while it overlooks more egregious behavior, with broader moral implications. In its effort to uphold politicians to a religious and often ambiguous moral standard,

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