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Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, May 25 2006, speaking in support of a constitutional amendment to keep gays and lesbians from being able to marry:

“I’m proud to join Matt and the entire Alliance for Marriage in support of the Marriage Protection Amendment and other pro-family, pro-marriage initiatives that we are pursuing in the Congress. Matt, I think your group, including the representatives here today, illustrate what a broad and deep consensus this is in the country — that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. . . . Your group recognizes a central truth from throughout human history, that marriage is the most important social institution in human history and is the most significant factor in terms of minimizing all sorts of social ills.

On Wednesday, March 29 2006, David Vitter sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, asking him to support passage of the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, which by upping penalties for the saying of naughty words would “be very beneficial to the life and the health of the family in America…”

David Vitter of Louisiana voted YES on the Largent Amendment in the House in 1999, to prohibit gay couples from being able to adopt children in Washington, DC.

David Vitter of Louisiana voted YES on the Hyde Amendment in the House in 2001, to prohibit the funding of overseas family planning organizations.

Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisiana cosponsored a Senate bill in 2005 to revoke the approval of RU-486, an emergency contraception medicine that also can be used to induce abortions in early pregnancy.

As Republican Senator from Louisiana in the 110th Congress, David Vitter has failed to cosponsor S. 21, a bill to expand access to preventative health care for women — including distribution of contraception, teen pregnancy prevention programs and rape prevention education — to lower the personal, economic and social costs of teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, and sexual assault.

Those are just a sample of statements, cosponsorships and votes from David Vitter, who has a long history of using his position in government to try to ram his vision of sexual moral values down everyone else’s throats, while failing to support programs for the provision of sexual health care services.

Are you at all surprised to find out that Republican Senator David Vitter had his phone number turn up on the list of a Washington, DC, madam? And are you at all surprised to find out that he hid this information from the public while trying to legislatively force his overtly conservative sexual agenda down the throats of all Americans?

You shouldn’t be surprised. David Vitter’s story joins a long list of stories of ultra-conservatives who publicly push an agenda of sexual moralizing at the expense of civil liberty while secretly engaging in the sexual conduct they have publicly condemned (Newt Gingrich, Mark Foley, Bob Bauman, Ted Haggard, Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, we hardly knew ye). Perhaps some future journal article will give a name to this pattern, which seems to be some sort of psychopolitical syndrome having to do with overcompensating for feelings of sexual shame and guilt.

Perhaps we should have some personal sympathy for people like David Vitter who have twisted themselves into such knots. But why should we continue to vote for them? Let’s stop supporting politicians who use the Congress and the White House for purgative sexual therapy. Vote for the progressives instead; however faulted they may or may not be in their personal lives, you can count on them to support policies of sexual liberty for all Americans.

(Sources: Senate Press Conference, May 25 2006; Christian Coalition Weekly Review April 1 2006; Bill information for S. 511; Roll Call Vote on Hyde Amendment; Roll Call Vote on Largent Amendment; Washington Post July 10 2007)