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FrancisFan43
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VanitasVanitatum
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I’d go on a case by case scenario.
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CathoRick
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I believe “traditionalists” would have been a more appropriate term, as there are many self-labeled conservatives in America who have very liberal views regarding sex, pornography, drug use, gambling, cohabiting, marriage, etc… In a general left-versus-right sense though, I’ve no doubt that statement still holds true…
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CTBcin
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Overall, I’d generally agree with this, although I’d definitely say that it can be a case-by-case basis. Some people do live double lives.
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Londoner
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@VanitasVanitatum @CTBcin I agree.
@CorydonMundi There are plenty of examples of “conservative men with traditional values” whose private lives have been very colourful.
People’s political views do not necessarily correlate with their personal morality. From the UK I could suggest the following:
@CorydonMundi There are plenty of examples of “conservative men with traditional values” whose private lives have been very colourful.
People’s political views do not necessarily correlate with their personal morality. From the UK I could suggest the following:
- Robert Boothby, Conservative MP and peer, parliamentary private secretary to Winston Churchill and a minister in WW2 government, married twice, fathered three children by two married women (neither of them his wives), possibly also the biological father of the youngest daughter of Conservative prime minster Harold Macmillan, associate of notorious East End gangsters the Kray twins, had affairs with men and took part in sadomasochism and orgies.
- Victor Montagu, Conservative MP, married twice, seven children by his first wife, had homosexual affairs, accepted police caution for sexual abuse of a male minor, also posthumously accused of sexual abuse of one of his sons, who gave sworn testimony to a public inquiry to this effect.
- John Profumo, Conservative MP, Secretary of State for War, married, one child, resigned due to an affair with model and showgirl Christine Keeler.
- The 2nd Earl Jellicoe, leader of the Conservative party in the House of Lords, married twice, eight children (including one illegitimate), resigned due to using prostitutes.
- Antony Lambton, Conservative MP, married, six children, resigned due to using prostitutes and thereafter lived with another woman while remaining married to his wife.
- Nicholas Fairbairn, Conservative MP, solicitor general for Scotland under Margaret Thatcher, married twice, four daughters and a son from his first marriage, one other illegitimate son (while married to his second wife), womaniser, allegations of sexual assaults.
- Alan Clark, Conservative MP, minister under Thatcher and John Major, married, two children, numerous affairs, including with the wife and two daughters of a judge (he called them “the coven”).
- Cecil Parkinson, Conservative MP and peer, Cabinet minister under Thatcher, later chairman of the Conservative Party, married, four daughters, including one, Flora, born to his former secretary (Parkinson never met his daughter Flora, who is disabled, never sent her a birthday card, and left her nothing in his will).
- Jeffrey Archer, Conservative MP and peer, deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, married, two children, used a prostitute, jailed for perjury and perverting the course of justice (in connection with his use of the said prostitute’s services), also had an affair with another woman who was not a prostitute.
- David Mellor, Conservative MP, served in Thatcher’s government and Major’s Cabinet, married, two children, had an affair with an actress and following his divorce from his wife has lived with a divorced aristocrat.
- John Major, leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister of the United Kingdom, married, two children, had an affair for four years with Conservative MP and government minister Edwina Currie.
- Jerry Hayes, Conservative MP, married, two children, had an affair with an 18-year-old man (at the time the age of consent for homosexual sex was 21).
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GordonP
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No. They are too busy chasing underage girls around shopping malls, like Judge Roy Moore.
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ATraveller
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John Major is the only one I recognize and he’s hardly a conservative with traditional values.
The point Meghan McCain is trying to get through is conservative men tend to have better family values. Not all conservative men of course. Being someone without a strong background in statistics and being involved with partisan politics, she would be less careful with her words.
But it is true conservative men tend to have better family values but that’s only due to religious people gravitating towards conservatism because religion by its very nature is conservative, in the sense of not changing for the sake of change. Consistently, what research shows is religious people who practise their faith are significantly less likely to drink excessively. Less likely to commit adultery. Less likely to lie. Less likely to abuse their wives. Less likely to divorce. Less likely to commit criminal offences. Compared to non-religious and self-identifying but non-practising religious people. And remarkably, non-religious and self-identifying but non-practising religious people don’t behave too differently from one another.
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CTBcin
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I think the when using the word “conservative,” many people’s minds (mine included) immediately think of politics. Especially when the person cited in the OP is closely associated with American political life.
Interestingly, McCain is no conservative when it comes to social issues.
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Emeraldlady
New member
Probably a good measure of what is true is to interview couples who’ve been married for 50+ years. I’d predict it would be much of a muchness in the end.
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Peeps
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CTBcin is right. In the U.S., at least in the last several years, when people say, “conservative,” we tend to think of politics, not morals.
I do think there is a lot of variation among people who consider themselves “conservative.” E.g., many conservative people (both political and moral) do not believe in open marriage or affairs or cheating, and don’t believe a divorce is something to be taken lightly, but only after all other efforts to save the marriage have failed.
However, many conservative people believe that LGBTQ etc. people are created that way by God and therefore have the right to live their lives free of any condemnation. I think one reason for this belief is that many families from all backgrounds and religions have someone in their family who is LGBTQ, and it becomes difficult to stick with a “traditional” religious doctrine about this when it’s your own flesh and blood.
I also think that many people who have always called themselves “conservative” when it comes to morals and values will yield when it comes to their own children co-habiting. If our child’s love interest is a decent, lovely person, It seems somehow useless and cold-hearted to insist that the co-habiting couple go to a hotel at the holidays instead of staying in the family home. OTOH, if our child is co-habiting with a loser (e…g, drunk, drug addict, shady/criminal type, obnoxious snob, etc.), it might be easier to lay down the law and tell them to go elsewhere to sleep.
Hypocritical, yes. But when it comes to “family values,” sometimes the boundary lines are hard to define. Family love often tops moral duty.
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Londoner
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I didn’t mean to directly tie it into politics. I was just citing some notorious examples of men who held conservative values whose private lives were anything but conservative. You originally said:
My point was that, in fact, one does not have to look far before one finds examples of “conservative men with traditional values” whose sexual preferences include all kinds of unusual behaviour. If you want an example of someone who is not political, take the recent case of the Reverend Simon Sayers, an Anglican priest from the conservative evangelical wing of the Church of England. Despite being a married man, he first got himself into trouble for twice having sexual relations with a 16-year-old schoolgirl. He was almost twice her age at the time of the incidents. He has now been permanently banned from ministry after conducting an affair with a married parishioner. But this is a conservative man with traditional values. Supposedly.
You don’t think that John Major was “a conservative with traditional values”? He was the British prime minister whose most enduring slogan was “Back to Basics”. He embraced a nostalgic vision of a Britain that had ceased to exist decades earlier:
The “Back to Basics” slogan originated in Major’s speech to the Conservative Party conference in 1993, in which he said:
Elsewhere, he suggested that the problems afflicting Britain in the 1990s went back to changes in society as long ago as the 1950s. So, although he has now emerged as a pro-EU centrist and a sensible and respected statesman, one must not lose sight of the fact that during his tenure as prime minister John Major was a deeply conservative figure.
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ATraveller
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A conservative with traditional values wouldn’t push for same-sex “marriage”.
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Londoner
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It is true that John Major supported same-sex marriage, although he was at the time no longer an MP, so he supported it only as an ordinary citizen, not as a serving MP or minister. He also contributed, as prime minister, to reducing the age of consent for gay men from 21 to 18. He also ended a policy which had previously prevented gay men and lesbians from serving in the diplomatic service. However, one has to understand that all of these policies were simply part of mainstream political opinion in the UK at the time. Advocating for equal access to marriage, an equal age of consent, and equal opportunity to serve one’s country were not strikingly liberal or progressive positions in the UK at the time.
By contrast, the overall tone of John Major’s leadership of the country was considered at the time to be somewhat more conservative and traditional than the mainstream. The Back to Basics campaign was widely interpreted as a reaction against sleaze (especially sex scandals) in British politics at the time and hence was seen as promoting conventional sexual morality and family values.
By contrast, the overall tone of John Major’s leadership of the country was considered at the time to be somewhat more conservative and traditional than the mainstream. The Back to Basics campaign was widely interpreted as a reaction against sleaze (especially sex scandals) in British politics at the time and hence was seen as promoting conventional sexual morality and family values.
blackforest
Well-known member
Per the link in the OP, Meghan McCain was specifically referring to GOP members when she said “conservative.” So while we can certainly muse about social conservatives and family values, the quote occurred in a very much political context.
Your point is well taken, but I’m not going to get into a stand-off over “who does it more” - liberals vs. conservatives.
One of those life-experience lessons I’ve learned is that the noisier people are about their virtues and values, the more prone they are to hypocrisy. This precept applies to everyone from private-jet celebrities lecturing us about our carbon footprint to family-values politicians cheating on their wives.
In the U.S., Bill Cosby, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, and Sen. Larry Craig immediately come to mind.
Your point is well taken, but I’m not going to get into a stand-off over “who does it more” - liberals vs. conservatives.
One of those life-experience lessons I’ve learned is that the noisier people are about their virtues and values, the more prone they are to hypocrisy. This precept applies to everyone from private-jet celebrities lecturing us about our carbon footprint to family-values politicians cheating on their wives.
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ATraveller
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I don’t think John Major being a public official or ordinary citizen makes a difference.
Clearly, we have very different definitions of traditional values and conservatism. I think your church would disagree with you on what traditional values are. I’m sure your church wouldn’t consider same-sex “marriage” as traditional.
However one wants to see it, it like all political campaigns are about garnering votes and support in desperate times. I have mentioned on CAF a number of times people should not be impressed by the words of politicians. They’ll say anything to get votes and be anything to be liked.
The rise of ‘devout schismatics’ in the Catholic Church World News
Clearly, we have very different definitions of traditional values and conservatism. I think your church would disagree with you on what traditional values are. I’m sure your church wouldn’t consider same-sex “marriage” as traditional.
John Major denied this was the case.
However one wants to see it, it like all political campaigns are about garnering votes and support in desperate times. I have mentioned on CAF a number of times people should not be impressed by the words of politicians. They’ll say anything to get votes and be anything to be liked.
I’ll reiterate that Meghan McCain’s words could had been more precise if she had stated the conservative men tend to have better family values and tend to adhere to them compared to liberals. This is what the wide body of research points to. And I added that’s only because of a gravitation of religious people towards conservatives. And I’ll add here that liberals don’t adhere to the same levels because they have a strong disdain for “judgemental” and restrictive family values.
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Londoner
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No, indeed, the liberal/left faction undoubtedly is home to many people whose sense of personal morality is far from conservative or traditional. Jeremy Corbyn would be a good example of that. He has had three marriages plus a well publicised relationship with fellow politician Diane Abbott. By all accounts he has treated women rather badly. On one now infamous occasion he brought a group of party activists to his bedsit on the pretext of picking up some campaign leaflets knowing that they would in all likelihood find his girlfriend naked in his bed. Other high profile Labour politicians who were involved in sex scandals included David Blunkett, John Prescott, and Robin Cook (adultery) and Ron Davies (cruising for gay sex in public), all Cabinet ministers under Tony Blair. The Liberal Democrats and their predecessors the Liberals have had scandals ranging from plain adultery (Paddy Ashdown) to paedophilia (Cyril Smith and Clement Freud) to a downright bizarre plot to murder the gay former lover of the party leader Jeremy Thorpe.
In British politics, however, it has generally been the case that sex scandals have disproportionately affected the Conservative Party (and people on the right will usually very readily agree with this). This is probably largely for reasons of class and culture rather than politics. Most of the Conservatives involved in sex scandals have tended to come from upper class and aristocratic backgrounds. The most lurid scandals have invariably involved men of this background. This can probably be put down to their having a sense of entitlement and a sense of being above conventional standards of morality as well as their having the financial means to sustain affairs and pay for prostitutes and probably very often having dysfunctional relationships with women due to their peculiar upbringing. Boris Johnson would be a prime example of this. Of course, this is generalising, and most members of the upper classes and aristocracy obviously did not tend to behave this way. However, it probably does account for many scandals.
The Labour Party, on the other hand, was culturally very much grounded in Protestant Nonconformity, especially Methodism, but also Baptists, Congregationalists, Quakers, and Unitarians. Old Labour politicians like Harold Wilson, Jim Callaghan, and Tony Benn all had long and happy marriages and held traditional conservative standards of personal morality. Interestingly, this was, of course, precisely the background from which Margaret Thatcher came, and she was in some ways more similar to some of her Labour contemporaries than she was to some of her Tory contemporaries.
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Londoner
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No, but I am not on this occasion talking about the teaching of the Catholic Church. I am just putting John Major in the context of British politics from, say, the 1960s to the present day. The trend over that period of time has been one of giving gay and bisexual people increasingly more legal rights and protections. The sole exception to that trend was Margaret Thatcher, whose infamous Section 28 was the only government policy in recent times that actually imposed an additional legal burden on gay and bisexual people rather than lifting legal burdens that were already there. Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, and Theresa May have all promoted progressive policies on gay rights. Boris Johnson is an interesting case, as he was notoriously bigoted towards homosexuals, especially gay men, until he achieved actual power, at which point he rapidly embraced the prevailing progressive mood. In this context, therefore, I think there is no contradiction in saying that somebody who supports gay rights can also be relatively conservative and traditionalist.
I really do not see how taking a “conservative” or “traditional” position on same-sex marriage would in any way correlate with having “better family values” in one’s personal life. Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron all have a reputation as very decent family men untouched by scandal. Theresa May, too, is widely reported as having a very good marriage with her husband. Interestingly, it is Boris Johnson, a conveniently reformed bigot, who now lives with his girlfriend while still married to his second wife and who has a barely acknowledged illegitimate child. It’s clearly quite absurd to suggest that being anti-gay would make somebody more successful at heterosexual marriage. In fact, when David Cameron introduced same-sex marriage, he emphasised that his desire to extend the benefits of marriage to same-sex couples actually came from his Conservative values and the high regard in which he holds the traditional institution of marriage.
In general, I am sceptical about any claims that being religious makes people more moral. One can derive moral values from sources other than religion. Many religious people are clearly thoroughly immoral.
Religion Doesn’t Make People More Moral, Study Finds
Are religious people more moral?
All the world’s major religions are concerned with moral behavior. But research shows little evidence that religious people are more ethical than atheists.
theconversation.com
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ATraveller
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The problem with your link is they don’t control for confounding variables.
For example, porn use, the study used state-wide. We know that’s a terrible way because you can’t control for religiosity measures.
Another flaw in your link is it uses self-identification. My links look at more than self-identification. Attendance is a good but imperfect measure of intrinsic religiosity.
Sorry but those who don’t view those ideals to be ideals, they are more likely to choose not to attempt those in the first place. Some ideals like life-long marriage aren’t ideals for many non-religious people because for whatever reason, they wrongly believe it’s impossible.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m in no way saying non-religious people can’t be moral. That would be a contradiction with the Westminster/Baptist Confession of Faith, which states non-religious people can do good works.
Religious people who attend regularly have morality reinforced through regular teachings and self-discipline/delayed gratification is heavily stressed. Even with that, failures can occur or completely disregard what’s been instilled in them. But those processes help decrease the chances of moral failing by a lot.
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blackforest
Well-known member
Interesting - good to know. I’m not sure who McCain had in mind when she made that comment - Republican politicians or Republican common-folk. Either way, she’s speculating with no hard data to back her claim.
I do think that a degree of narcissism comes with celebrity status. As in . . . . Sure, there are morals and values and the like, and they’re very important. But it’s OK if we Important People break those rules. We’re special.
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