I woke up this morning to the news that Rep. Mark Souder, 8-term Indiana Republican, was resigning amidst a sexual scandal. It seems the married Mark was having an affair with his married aide, Tracy.
As a guy who blogs for a leading drug reform organization (NORML) and for a leading LGBT blog (occasionally) I think the best characterization of my reaction is “giddy schadenfreude” at the amazing two-fer served for my blogging pleasure.
A holier-than-thou “family values” Republican caught committing adultery with a woman he recorded Christian radio ads with. A video of the congressman and his mistress discussing the need for “abstinence” education for teenagers (which has been shown time and again to have no effect on teen sexuality other than reducing their likelihood of engaging in safer sexual practices.) A guy who proclaimed that my gay and lesbian friends getting married would destroy the sanctity of marriage is guilty of helping destroy the sanctity of two marriages. A guy who characterized homosexuality as a tendency, like problem gambling and alcoholism, that could be resisted and treated just couldn’t resist treating himself to some other man’s wife.
Like I said, positively giddy. As others here may have already given you the greatest hits package of Souder’s views on gay marriage, abstinence education, and “family values”, I’ll just share from my area of expertise to show you Mark Souder, the guy who believed a joint in your dorm room should end your college education.Souder was one of the most rabid anti-marijuana prohibitionists in Congress. Never mind which lady he was screwing, think of the hundreds of thousands of college students he screwed with his Higher Education Act amendments, which denied federal student aid to young people caught with a little pot (but murderers, thieves, rapists, and even college cheaters and plagiarists can still get aid).
Here are some of Souder’s Greatest Anti-Drug Hits:
“One of the reasons why then-Speaker Dennis Hastert originally appointed me to the Homeland Security Committee was to pressure Congress and the Executive Branch not to forget about our duty to fight illegal drugs in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. … Like child and spousal abuse, we will never completely eradicate illegal drug use, but we have a moral obligation to fight this battle.”
Rep. Mark Souder (R-Indiana) observed that “in every store with rock music … you have the marijuana sign, the marijuana drug, an acceptance in the culture, and we need to focus on changing the moral authority … of this country.”
In early 2006, Souder added, to a bill about the office of the drug czar, a provision calling for the fungus Fusarium oxysporum to be used as a biological control agent against drug crops in foreign countries. Several federal and state agencies have previously rejected such use of the fungus because it is highly prone to mutation.
On February 9th, 2007 Souder appeared as a guest on MSNBC’s “The Situation With Tucker Carlson”. Souder was asked specifically as to why marijuana is of such focus with regard to anti drug campaigns. He said of today’s marijuana plants “the destruction in your brain cells, is more like coke or crack than it is like the old time marijuana” in regard to the addictiveness and modern THC content. Souder said that the high THC content of today’s marijuana makes it much stronger than “the ditch weed” of the 1960s and 1970s. The Congressman later went on to say “No drug user is a single drug user” and goes on to clarify that “a marijuana user is very seldom just a casual marijuana user“, to which Carlson said he was wrong based upon users he knows.
Excuse me now, I have to put on some John Lennon…
