That Confusing Morality Thing

Sophisticated and urbane, the NYT -- heralding the confusion of all MSM -- continues to struggle with the moral issues voter.

In a morality voter "dog bites man" headline for all time, the NYT proclaims today:

Evangelicals Blame Foley, not Republican Party

Reporter David Kirkpatrick slogs through this uncharted mire for the Times, and does a pretty good job of it, all in all, although you sense that he feels an obligation to do some heavy lifting to bring this story to his paper's secular readers. He takes them to school by quoting Charles Dunn from Pat Robertson's Regent University:

Where liberals tend to think of collective responsibility, conservative Christians focus on personal morality. “The conservative Christian audience or base has this acute moral lens through which they look at this, and it is very personal,” Mr. Dunn said. “This is Foley’s personal sin.”

And he gives this example of a real life evangelical's thoughts, to help clarify the matter from the latte drinkers of SoHo:

Brian Courtney, a Republican-leaning sales manager ..., said the Foley affair had led to “the kind of mudslinging one would expect to see at an election time like this.” He added that he was paying closer attention to the “values and character” of the candidates, and that he would probably vote Republican again.

Hmmm. Does that mean that there's something generally wrong with the "values and character" of most Dem candidates? Kirkpatrick doesn't give any precious column inches to explaining why conservative Christians may not be keen on voting Dem: no Gore lied, no descriptions of late-term abortion, no Barney Frank and the gay prostitution ring, no Bill Clinton and the blue dress and what "is" is.

But Kirkpatrick does have the time to reassure his liberal readers that they're still OK, because these are a bunch of intolerant yahoos:

Still, many conservative churchgoers said that what stood out for them was not the politics but the individual sin. “It is not going to affect my vote because I don’t live in Florida,” said Scott O’Connell, a mechanical engineer who described himself as a fundamentalist. “But there is a bigger moral issue which I would say is the prism I view this through: I do not believe in homosexuality.”

The quote, near the end of the story, gives his readers their out. It's not about morality, it's about bigotry, so we're still superior they can think, as they turn to the crossword puzzle.

hat-tip: Real Clear Politics
Related Tags: Foley, Media bias, Morality, GOP, DNC