Family values cannot mean demanding sexual restraint, marital fidelity and traditional morality from ordinary Americans while treating the private conduct of political allies as irrelevant whenever enforcement becomes inconvenient.

That is not a moral code.

It is a dress code.

And lately, the people policing everybody else's wardrobe keep getting caught with their pants somewhere they probably shouldn't be.

Let me get something out of the way before we descend into the usual culture-war sewer.

I do not need politicians to have immaculate private lives.

People get divorced. People cheat. People remarry. People make terrible decisions after midnight. Human beings have been spectacularly bad at sexual restraint since approximately five minutes after sexual reproduction was invented.

Nor do I give a damn whether Lauren Boebert is straight, gay, bisexual, or secretly attracted to circus acrobats.

If consenting adults want to sleep together, that is generally their business.

The problem is not sex. The problem is hypocrisy, power, coercion, and rules that mysteriously change depending on whose name is on the jersey.

This is not some stereotype invented by liberals.

The Republican Party's 2024 platform says Republicans will promote a culture that values the "Sanctity of Marriage", the blessings of childhood, and the foundational role of families.

Their words.

Fine.

Then I am going to take them seriously.

If marriage is sacred, it does not become less sacred because the politician violating its supposed rules has an R after his name.

If sexual restraint is a civic virtue, it does not suddenly become optional when the person ignoring it can deliver votes, own the libs, or look good shouting into a microphone.

And if character matters, it cannot matter exclusively when we're talking about Democrats.

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Conservative media has never exactly maintained a monastic silence about the private lives of Democrats.

Fox News reported on Doug Emhoff's admission that he had an affair during his first marriage while Kamala Harris was running for president.

Fox has revisited Harris's decades-old relationship with Willie Brown.

And Bill Clinton's sexual history has somehow remained available for political recycling long after Monica Lewinsky qualified for an AARP membership card.

So spare me the sudden discovery that private conduct is beneath political discussion.

Apparently it isn't.

The question is whether the rule survives a change in jersey.

Donald Trump has been married three times.

A New York jury convicted him of falsifying business records connected to a payment made before the 2016 election to keep Stormy Daniels from speaking publicly about a sexual encounter she said she had with him. Trump has denied having sex with Daniels and appealed the case.

In a separate civil case, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll. Trump denied Carroll's allegation and has continued challenging the judgments.

None of that has prevented a political movement that talks endlessly about traditional morality from making Trump its central figure.

That does not mean every conservative who supports him secretly approves of every part of his private conduct.

It does mean the phrase family values starts sounding pretty flexible.

Pete Hegseth's confirmation as Secretary of Defense brought another round of questions about personal conduct.

A woman accused him of sexually assaulting her after a 2017 conference. Hegseth denied the accusation and said the encounter was consensual. Prosecutors did not file charges, citing insufficient evidence.

Other allegations concerning drinking and behavior toward his former wife surfaced during the confirmation process. Hegseth denied abuse, and his former wife said there had been no physical abuse in their marriage.

Those distinctions matter.

An accusation is not a conviction.

I don't want liberals doing the same lazy bullshit we complain about when the other side does it.

But I also don't buy the idea that questions about personal conduct become illegitimate the moment those questions become politically inconvenient.

Hegseth was ultimately confirmed after a 50-50 Senate vote, with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie. Three Republican senators joined Democrats in voting against confirmation.

Which brings us to Lauren Boebert.

A sworn ethics complaint filed in September 2026 alleges that Boebert had sexual relationships with three congressional employees working under her supervision and alleges that approximately $200,000 was paid to a former staffer to prevent an ethics complaint.

Those are allegations.

Boebert has denied them. A former staffer at the center of the complaint has also denied the allegations involving her. As of this writing, the House Ethics Committee has not publicly announced that it has opened an investigation into the complaint.

But underneath the allegations sits a question that does not depend on believing David Wheeler, Lauren Boebert, or anybody else involved.

The House rule itself is perfectly clear.

A member of Congress may not have a sexual relationship with a House employee working under that member's supervision.

And that brings us to the part people keep trying to turn into a debate about somebody's sexuality.

Who she might have slept with is not the important part.

Whether she slept with somebody whose career she controlled would be.

Veterans should understand this one without needing a seminar.

Rank matters.

Authority matters.

The ability to influence somebody's evaluation, assignment, promotion, paycheck, or future matters.

That does not mean an adult subordinate suddenly loses all agency.

It means adults in positions of authority are expected to understand something extremely basic:

When you control part of another person's future, you carry more responsibility into the room.

The military has rules about fraternization for a reason.

Congress has a rule about sexual relationships with supervised employees for a reason.

The problem is not that sex is dirty.

The problem is that power follows you into the bedroom whether you acknowledge it or not.

There is an obvious answer to all of this:

People screw up.

Yes. They do.

People cheat. They get divorced. They drink too much. They behave like jackasses. They grow up. They apologize. They get sober. They learn things. Sometimes they genuinely become better people.

Good.

I am not interested in building a politics where one failed marriage earns you permanent exile.

If perfection were a prerequisite for public office, Congress could probably hold its annual session in the back booth of a Chili's.

Forgiveness is not hypocrisy.

Selective forgiveness is where things get interesting.

Your opponent's affair demonstrates a corrupt soul.

Your ally's affair demonstrates that nobody is perfect.

Your opponent's divorce proves the collapse of the American family.

Your guy's third marriage is a beautiful story of personal growth.

An accusation against somebody you hate is instantly credible.

An accusation against somebody you need suddenly inspires a graduate seminar on due process.

No.

Pick a standard.

There is nothing inherently wrong with valuing marriage.

There is nothing wrong with fidelity.

There is nothing wrong with wanting fathers to stick around, parents to take responsibility, couples to treat commitments seriously, or families to give kids some stability.

Hell, those are mostly good things.

But values mean considerably more when they cost you something.

It is easy to demand virtue from people you already dislike.

The test comes when somebody on your own side disappoints you.

That is when a principle either survives or reveals itself as branding.

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One Standard

Nobody needs politicians to be saints.

Nobody needs the government inspecting bedrooms.

Nobody needs another round of sexual puritanism dressed up as concern for civilization.

What we could use is something considerably less complicated.

One standard.

Consenting adults deserve privacy.

Employees deserve protection from abuses of authority.

Allegations deserve evidence and due process.

Victims deserve to be taken seriously.

Sexual assault and coercion deserve no partisan exemption.

And political movements that preach private morality in public should expect people to notice when the exemptions become considerably more generous for members of their own club.

If character matters, it still matters when your side holds the gavel.

If privacy is a principle, extend it to the people you despise.

If due process matters, give it to everybody.

And if your moral standard somehow becomes softer, kinder, more nuanced and more forgiving every time one of your political allies gets caught in it?