Scott Tibbs
The Pence Rule: Why do you care?
By Scott Tibbs, September 6, 2023
Leftists spent much of 2016 criticizing the "hypocrisy" of conservative Christians who supported Donald Trump, but once Trump won they found a new target. They kept attacking "hypocrisy" of course, but also wailed about Mike Pence following the Billy Graham Rule: Avoid being alone with women other than your wife who are not related to you. They wanted to have it both ways: Condemn Trump for his promiscuity and condemn Pence for striving to be pure. This rage subsided for a while, until
this article at Slate.
Let's set the morality and practicality of the Pence Rule aside for a minute. The obvious question is this:
Why do you care? What does it matter that Pence has a personal discipline that many people in modern society find quaint or backward? How does it impact you at all? The answer is simple: It doesn't. Pence's personal behavior has absolutely no impact on your life whatsoever. Yet the very same hypocrites who cry about people being "judgmental" are more than happy to judge Pence.
This entire non-controversy (or nontroversy) reminds me of the quote by C. S. Lewis:
When the modern world says to us aloud, "You may be religious when you are alone," it adds under its breath, "and I will see to it that you never are alone."
Luke Winkie sets up an army of straw men so he can knock them down. No, the Pence Rule does not stipulate that all women are temptresses who are trying to derail good men, nor does it stipulate that men are savages who are unable to control their animalistic urges. It simply recognizes that human nature exists, and temptation can arise when you think you are safe. Pence has never proposed setting up a theocracy where a man who breaks the Billy Graham Rule would be executed or imprisoned. That is silly, drama-queen nonsense that does not deserve a detailed rebuttal. I would say it is a lie, but Winkie may actually be so hysterical that he really believes it.
It speaks volumes that so many people in the modern world become irrationally angry because a man has set up guardrails in his personal life because he wants to honor and respect his wife. We are a culture that is immersed in sexual depravity, so when one man's personal discipline brings any kind of guilt he must be destroyed and demonized as some sort of dangerous religious fanatic. Pence living by the Billy Graham Rule harms nobody and restricts no one other than Pence himself. But guilt and "shaming" must never be allowed in a libertine society.
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