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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   25770 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026

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I think that if you're trying to nitpick whether or not what you did was really adulterous, you're probably already in the red zone.

The underlying principle is that people who either don't keep their own most sacred promises, or who participate in helping others to break their own most sacred promises, should not bear the public trust. This is why e.g. someone who cheats in a same-sex partnership still fails the test, even though technically that's not 'marriage' in the sense that I understand the term.

You might be implying cases like a married couple who, via mutual agreement, sleep with other people? Like an open marriage? That does run afoul of my rule; I see how it's meaningfully different to traditional cheating, but it's still in my view morally disqualifying. This is also how I resolve cases of consensual polyamory - the interaction with my adultery rule is somewhat blurry, but as it is also disqualifying in itself, there is no need to resolve the exact relationship to adultery.

This is all just around the edges, though. Practical cases tend to look more like, for example, Barnaby Joyce.

Oops, I was confusing adultery with fornication. My confusion stemmed from "thou shalt not commit adultery" commonly being interpreted as also prohibiting fornication. I was actually asking about your opinion on non-adulterous extramarital sex.

I think that if you're trying to nitpick whether or not what you did was really adulterous, you're probably already in the red zone.

I don't think that should necessarily apply to politicians. Politicians have enemies who interpret everything they did uncharitably, so a politician may have to "nitpick" in response to them.

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