A Stitch in Haste

“Integrity requires carefully developing and upholding a set of inviolable beliefs. People of integrity are not inflexible, but their decisions are made in the context of strongly held values. Principled leaders must not only set a moral compass, but also effectively communicate a code of conduct to those they lead. They are obligated to remain faithful to their core convictions in order to demand and inspire the same in others.”
–Giuliani Partners website

So first Christopher Hitchens says:

Until 1978, the so-called Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was an officially racist organization. Mitt Romney was an adult in 1978. We need to know how he justified this to himself, and we need to hear his self-criticism, if he should chance to have one.

To which Andrew Sullivan concatenates:

The awful history of the LDS church’s treatment of African-Americans requires an accounting by any leading Mormon, as Romney is, who didn’t protest at the time.

To which I concatenate: Indeed. An “accounting” by Romney is definitely in order…

…right after we get an “accounting” from Rudy Giuliani on how he justifies to himself his continued participation in the Roman Catholic Church, which has been far more discriminatory and fundamentally unjust to women — for many many more centuries — than the Mormons ever were to blacks.

This is especially true given that the Mormons abandoned their racist policies. Seen any female Catholic priests recently?

This is double especially true given Giuliani’s joke of an annulment — after 14 years of marriage — to his first of three wives, courtesy of the “uphold family values, defend traditional marriage” Catholic Church (as represented, incidentally, by an accused child molester and suspended monsignor later hired by — wait for it — Giuliani Partners). Any “accounting” required for all that?

Extreme skepticism toward organized religion and its assorted lunacies is a noble undertaking. So noble that it shouldn’t be sullied (no pun intended) by insolent double-standards. The Catholics are hardly a sect with standing to damn the Mormons.

—

Speaking of Giuliani, women and accounting:

As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.

The documents, obtained by Politico under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.

Remember: “People of integrity are not inflexible” — especially when cooking the books and bilking the taxpayers.