{"id":128,"date":"2010-05-19T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-19T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/gops-disgraced-rep-mark-souder-evangelical-christian-had-promoted-abstinence.html"},"modified":"2010-05-19T12:30:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-19T12:30:00","slug":"gops-disgraced-rep-mark-souder-evangelical-christian-had-promoted-abstinence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/gops-disgraced-rep-mark-souder-evangelical-christian-had-promoted-abstinence.html","title":{"rendered":"GOP&#8217;s Disgraced Rep. Mark Souder, Evangelical Christian, Had Promoted Abstinence in Video With Mistress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Several commenters have been speculating on why I hadn&#8217;t yet blogged about&nbsp;Indiana Rep.&nbsp;Mark Souder adultery-resignation news, among other stories. Rest assured, there&#8217;s no editorial conspiracy here &#8212; I just don&#8217;t have time (especially having just returned from a major trip) to blog about everything, and sometimes I make a judgment call to hold off for a day or two so that I can put a breaking story into an appropriate religion beat context.<\/p>\n<p>Having said that, here&#8217;s&nbsp;my&nbsp;$.02 on the Souder situation: yet another&nbsp;moralizing public figure caught with his pants down? You would think that politicians and prominent pastors would realize by now that, especially&nbsp;in this media-saturated day and age, they&#8217;re going to get caught. (I&#8217;m&nbsp;rolling my eyes&nbsp;at you, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/ted-haggard-disgraced-evangelical-pastor-starts-new-church.html\">Ted Haggard, <\/a>John Edwards, Mark Sanford,&nbsp;Eliot Spitzer, John Ensign,&nbsp;etc., etc., etc.) What&#8217;s particularly ironic here is that Souder, an evangelical Christian,&nbsp;has been active in promoting abstinence &#8212; including&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/8301-503544_162-20005274-503544.html\">recording a video in which his mistress, staffer Tracy Jackson,&nbsp;interviews him on the subject<\/a>.&nbsp;(Yeesh.)<\/p>\n<p>Check out these links for more on the Indiana senator&#8217;s politics and beliefs:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/05\/19\/AR2010051901291.html\">GOP&#8217;s Mark Souder latest politician&nbsp; with sex troubles <\/a>(AP)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/roddreher\/2010\/05\/in-praise-of-adulterous-christian-mark-souder.html\">In praise of conservative Christian adulterer Mark Souder<\/a> (Rod Dreher, for Beliefnet)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/05\/representative-mark-souder-the-hypocrisy-of-the-hypocrite.html\">Representative Mark Souder: The Hypocrisy of the Hypocrite <\/a>(Diana Butler Bass, for Beliefnet)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/USA\/Politics\/The-Vote\/2010\/0518\/Mark-Souder-Would-he-have-resigned-if-he-were-a-Democrat\">Mark Souder: Would he have resigned if he were a Democrat?<\/a> (Christian Science Monitor)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.indystar.com\/article\/20100519\/NEWS05\/5190329\/Souder-affair-Why-do-politicans-stray\">Why do politicians like Rep. Mark Souder stray? <\/a>(Indianapolis Star)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>subscribe to Belief Beat<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/a>and<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Several commenters have been speculating on why I hadn&#8217;t yet blogged about&nbsp;Indiana Rep.&nbsp;Mark Souder adultery-resignation news, among other stories. Rest assured, there&#8217;s no editorial conspiracy here &#8212; I just don&#8217;t have time (especially having just returned from a major trip) to blog about everything, and sometimes I make a judgment call to hold off for&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>GOP&#039;s Disgraced Rep. Mark Souder, Evangelical Christian, Had Promoted Abstinence in Video With Mistress - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/gops-disgraced-rep-mark-souder-evangelical-christian-had-promoted-abstinence.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"GOP&#039;s Disgraced Rep. Mark Souder, Evangelical Christian, Had Promoted Abstinence in Video With Mistress - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Several commenters have been speculating on why I hadn&#8217;t yet blogged about&nbsp;Indiana Rep.&nbsp;Mark Souder adultery-resignation news, among other stories. Rest assured, there&#8217;s no editorial conspiracy here &#8212; I just don&#8217;t have time (especially having just returned from a major trip) to blog about everything, and sometimes I make a judgment call to hold off for&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/gops-disgraced-rep-mark-souder-evangelical-christian-had-promoted-abstinence.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-05-19T12:30:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"GOP's Disgraced Rep. Mark Souder, Evangelical Christian, Had Promoted Abstinence in Video With Mistress - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/gops-disgraced-rep-mark-souder-evangelical-christian-had-promoted-abstinence.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"GOP's Disgraced Rep. Mark Souder, Evangelical Christian, Had Promoted Abstinence in Video With Mistress - Belief Beat","og_description":"Several commenters have been speculating on why I hadn&#8217;t yet blogged about&nbsp;Indiana Rep.&nbsp;Mark Souder adultery-resignation news, among other stories. Rest assured, there&#8217;s no editorial conspiracy here &#8212; I just don&#8217;t have time (especially having just returned from a major trip) to blog about everything, and sometimes I make a judgment call to hold off for&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/gops-disgraced-rep-mark-souder-evangelical-christian-had-promoted-abstinence.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2010-05-19T12:30:00+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/gops-disgraced-rep-mark-souder-evangelical-christian-had-promoted-abstinence.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/gops-disgraced-rep-mark-souder-evangelical-christian-had-promoted-abstinence.html","name":"GOP's Disgraced Rep. 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