Spiritual wickedness in high places

This is a story about the conflicts between private life and public life.

The story starts with a Boston area bankruptcy judge taking a walk on the wild side in New Hampshire while his wife was away for the weekend. In this case that involved cross dressing and visiting a popular gay bar. His only crime was that he had too much to drink and then got behind the wheel. The next thing he knew, there was a parked pickup truck on the hood of his Mercedes. The police said that they knew he was drunk because he passed out a couple of times and, “had a difficult time locating his license in his purse.”

He pleaded ‘no contest’ to a misdemeanor DUI charge and agreed to pay roughly $600 in penalties. He also agreed to a 12-month suspension of his judicial license and resigned the post President Bush appointed him to in 2004.

Here’s what’s sad to me about the whole thing.

From all accounts, he was a good judge in an area of law where we need good judges.

So, other than embarrassment, why did he have to resign?

My sense is if it had been a simple DUI, he probably wouldn’t have had to resign. Heck there are plenty of congressmen and senators over the past several years convicted of driving while under the influence who have continued to hold office. Recently defeated Senator Tommy Robertson just had his second DUI conviction. The judge had to resign because of the revelation that he was a transvestite. As a Republican, I submit that this is a far greater transgression than driving after having too much to drink.

If this person had chosen to show up for the job in fishnet stockings and an evening dress, you could make a strong case for him being unfit. The fact that this occurred on his own time at a place where he would not be recognized suggests that he is capable of discretion and shouldn’t be punished for anything more than just having too much to drink.

If J. Edgar Hoover could run the FBI for 48 years and occasionally wear women’s clothes, why not this guy?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 10:59 pm and is filed under Bias. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.