Michigan tea-party lawmaker Todd Courser recently tried to
cover up an affair with fellow representative Cindy Gamrat by attempting to solicit one of his aides to distribute an email that fictitiously claimed the lawmaker had a gay fling with a male prostitute. Hoping to
"innoculate the herd" before the real scandal of his affair came to light, the scheme blew up in his face like Wile E. Coyote handling Acme dynamite in a Road Runner cartoon.
Rather than resign, tuck his tail between his legs and keep his mouth shut, Courser took to Facebook over the weekend. In a lengthy, rambling and largely incoherent screed he attempted to garner sympathy while explaining away his actions without really owning them. Peppered with scripture quotes, Courser seems to be pinning his woes on the concept of original sin and the fact that we're all sinners, so let it go already. It is one of the most self-serving, self-pitying and self-excusing explanations imaginable.
Please follow below the fold for an excerpt and more.
This is but a mere sampling of the drivel he wrote to the world.
In my life sin had its root and it worked to undo so much and has yet to undo so much more; my life, my reputation, my relationship with my wife and children and my extended family; not to mention my relationships and reputation around the world. This sin in my life has been and will continue to reap its reward. In all of this many have commented publicly and have enjoyed the spectacle of watching a man burn and have reveled in the joy it has brought in themselves, but all of this has also brought so many who have been absolutely encouraging and supportive. A special group has been of those men who have come forward to express their own failures to me in fidelity and what guilt and shame they have felt for their own failures in their own faith and faithfulness to God, His holy word, and to their wives and children. Just having heard their stories has been some of the most humbling experiences of my life; with several have come forward to share their pain for participating in/and addicted to pornography and what that has wrought in themselves and their families. And finally a couple have come forward to express their guilt and shame for being faith filled but struggling with how to reconcile that with having homosexual tendencies and trying to reconcile that with their faith. In every one of these experiences it has been an incredibly humbling to me. I am not sure why all of this coming out about me has brought them forward, but I am eternally grateful for their words and their experiences. One pastor told me – “Todd I can’t condemn you, I have committed every sin in the bible, but for one and that is murder, and that last one I have thought about enough to be guilty of it.” He said and I am a pastor. ...
The most brutal things I have had to endure in my life have been brought from and thru this experience – the public humiliation was small and insignificant when compared to having telling my wife and children and my family – death will be a much richer reward, a much easier mantle, than having to share all of this, my wife and I have been dealing with this privately and unfortunately some just couldn’t allow it to remain private for our family to deal with; it goes with the politic territory – the wages of sin is death … so many have been viscerally hostile towards me – I deserve all of it and every word of anger and hostility. It is mystifying to be in the middle of this hurricane and to be totally here and be present and feel the full fury of so much condemnation. It seems to have brought out the best in some and the most vile in others; so many words of encouragement and yet so many people who revel in piling on and watching another burn alive. I hope all of you who read this can live without having to live thru this personally and I hope that in your lives you have no sin to be held accountable for and so do not need a savior; I am just clearly in need of one; my life and my actions in no way diminish Him, or His plan, or His hope and sacrifice for all who have sinned. ...
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no the evil I do not want to do-this I keep doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in that does it.
The huge number of responses he received on Facebook were swift in their condemnation. He is rightfully being laughed off the stage for his continued foray into unchartered hypocrisy. Both he and Gamrat have made their careers as harsh social conservatives who love nothing more than to legislate how people live their lives. From LGBT rights to abortion rights and everything in between, they are both perfectly comfortable wagging their fingers and creating new laws against those they find objectionable, all the while playing hide the cannoli behind their spouses backs.
I guess Leviticus is only for the gays. Never mind verse 20:10. That one is as silly as the shellfish law and the mixing of fabrics. Cherry picking comes ever so easy for some folks.
Courser has refused to resign as has Gamrat, who held her own tearful press conference last Friday. I guess if you are a fundamentalist, tea party, social conservative Republican lawmaker you are above repercussion for any damn little thing you may get yourself up to.