Cheatin’ & Lying: One Atheist Scholar Comes Down in Favor of OPP

29Nov07

Here is grumpy atheist Richard Dawkins arguing that when society believes something stupid it’s your obligation to lie about it if you are a public figure:

“Is sex outside of marriage a sin? Is it a public matter? Is it forgivable?”
No, of course sex outside marriage is not a public matter, and yes, of course it is forgivable. Only a person infected by the sort of sanctimonious self-righteousness that religion uniquely inspires would apply the meaningless word ’sin’ to private sexual behavior.

It is the mark of the religious mind that it cares more about private than public morality. As the bumper sticker slogan put it, “When Clinton lied, nobody died.” Officially, Bill Clinton was impeached not for sexual misconduct but for lying about it. But he was entitled to lie about his private life: one could even make a case that he had a positive duty to do so. Tony Blair should have been impeached for lying to the House of Commons about alleged evidence for weapons of mass destruction, because his lies persuaded Members to vote for a war when they otherwise would not. Lying to Congress by saying, “I did not have sex with that woman” should not be an impeachable offense, because where a man puts his penis is none of Congress’s damn business. Nor is it any journalist’s damn business whether a politician once took drugs at university. Or whether he is gay.

And please don’t say the right answer to an impertinent question about your private life is “No comment”, because we all know how that would be interpreted. Telling a lie is often the only way to convey an effective “No comment.”

Well Bush did get away with saying no comment about drugs, but I think this is an interesting if not very compelling point. If you cheat on you wife and you’re the President of the United States it might be moral to lie about it.

However, the more moral thing to do would be not cheat on your wife in the first place (or at least take an 8 year break from the cheating). In fact the 8 year cheating moratorium is exactly what I expected of Bill Clinton, and it was a moral failing when he failed to live up to my expectations.

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Tags: Bill Clinton, morality, OPP, Richard Dawkins, Sex of outside of marriage