Mark Twain has observed that man will sacrifice any treasure he has, any power he thinks he has, to the demands of his sex drive.
He will lie, cheat, risk fame and fortune and betray a wife and family he loves.Like anything in life, the greater his fame and fortune, the more seductive the possibilities.
Ironically, his Christian reward for resisting the invitation to indulge his strongest, most nagging human appetite next to food and drink is the promise of a sexless heaven.
The brand of “Christian” who glories in exposing John Edwards’ betrayal of his fatally-sick wife finds his own aphrodisiac for abstinence in someone else’s downfall.
He who casts the first stone is, as Jesus points out, most likely to be guilty of the same thing. He is sanctimoniously superior to the object of his envy because his exposure remains a private matter.
Besides, he isn’t important enough to make it onto the pages of The National Enquirer
Like Abraham’s sacrifice of his son, this Isaac has been granted a scapegoat. Glory, hallelujah!
The sexual act, itself, is not the issue as much as it is the betrayal of the innocent undeserving. John Edwards may be guilty of that betrayal, but the American voyeur is more so.
To blow up Elizabeth Edwards’ personal humiliation into a public circus for the sadistic satisfaction of the spectator has sin written all over it.
To savor the appetite for sanctimonious superiority over a person of importance is the loser’s compensation for his own lack of earned recognition. His God-ordained mission to crucify the victim alongside the perpetrator goes beyond cruelty and well into bestiality.