Adultery

We live in a bipolar culture. We allow ourselves to be drenched in sexual images in movies, on television and on the Internet and then defend First Amendment protection to even the most graphic of them. Then, when a politician acts out what culture promotes, we criticize him, especially if he's conservative, branding him with the equivalent of a "scarlet letter. " In our not too distant past, a feeling of shame made people go into hiding after an adulterous relationship was exposed.

I can understand the Catholic Church not recognizing or performing same-sex marriages. I can also understand the church not recognizing or performing marriages where one party is divorced and has a spouse living. The church takes the attitude that marriage is between one man and one woman for life. Fine. But I don't understand the church taking such a different attitude to the two situations. I don't recall the church ever denouncing Ronald Reagan for living in open adultery - even though in the eyes of the church that is what his "marriage" to Nancy Davis amounted to, assuming his first marriage was a valid marriage and not a sham.

Baltimore County Executive Roger B. Hayden's wife, Nancy, has filed for divorce, accusing him of physical and mental cruelty and adultery.Documents filed late Tuesday in Circuit Court allege that "over the years" since their marriage in July 1984, Mr. Hayden "has engaged in a course of abusive conduct . . . designed to intimidate her and to injure her emotionally, physically and mentally."Mr. Hayden, responding through Carol Hirschburg, his official spokeswoman, accused his wife of filing the suit to break an impasse in negotiations of a financial settlement to end the marriage.

We live in a bipolar culture. We allow ourselves to be drenched in sexual images in movies, on television and on the Internet and then defend First Amendment protection to even the most graphic of them. Then, when a politician acts out what culture promotes, we criticize him, especially if he's conservative, branding him with the equivalent of a "scarlet letter. " In our not too distant past, a feeling of shame made people go into hiding after an adulterous relationship was exposed.

Finally, there's good news for the married woman who feels she left her sexuality behind at the altar. It seems happiness and a renewed sense of yourself as a sexually passionate person are now yours for the taking.In fact, to overcome a case of the sexual blahs in your marriage all you have to take is: a lover.Or at least that's the message of "The Erotic Silence of the American Wife," Dalma Heyn's new book on the benefits to married women of adulterous liaisons. It's being hailed as a revolutionary breakthrough by such respected feminists as Gloria Steinem and Barbara Ehrenreich.

In every nation's army, there are regulations and then there are realities when it comes to affairs of the heart.There is, for example, the matter of adultery.Armies frown upon it. Or even deem it a crime. The Pentagon has struggled with whether and how to discipline officers for adulterous relationships, and how to explain the wide variation in punishments.But the subject seems far less troubling to other nations' military establishments, as reported by members of The Sun's foreign staff:GREAT BRITAIN"We don't kick people out for that sort of thing," says a spokesman for Britain's Defense Ministry.

The scarlet letter may be fading as a badge of shame, with religion, courts and society as a whole working to reconcile the long-cherished ideal of monogamy with the all-too-common reality of adultery.With estimates that about one-third to one-half of married persons have engaged in extramarital affairs, some say attitudes toward adultery are shifting from outright condemnation to a sort of acceptance, if a rather uneasy one.* Marriage therapists say they believe couples are more likely today to try to keep their marriages together after an infidelity than head straight for divorce.

I think it may be time to forgive Gary Hart for his sins.I think so because I have almost forgotten what his sins were.He ran for president a couple of times, but you can't hold that against a man forever.And now a newsmagazine reports that next year he might run for the U.S. Senate from Colorado, a job he held for 12 years.(In 1984, Hart won 29 primaries and caucuses and narrowly lost the Democratic nomination for president to Walter Mondale, who asked him, "Where's the beef?" Mondale is currently a U.S. ambassador, but nobody knows to where.

Pointing to a Maryland adultery law that dates back to 1715, Baltimore County police officials are investigating three officers who don't meet the moral standards of the department.The three came under investigation for violating the state's adultery law two months ago, after complaints were lodged with the department. The complaints originated with the spouses from whom the officers are separated, said E. Jay Miller, a police spokesman.Two of the officers -- a man and a woman -- are separated from their current spouses and living together, police said.

TAYLORSVILLE, N.C. - A judge's decision to charge an Alexander County couple with adultery under a seldom-used 1805 law could cause havoc in the courts, some lawyers say. District Judge Jimmy Myers of Davie County issued the charges at the end of an otherwise routine custody hearing recently, shocking lawyers and others in the Alexander County courtroom and starting a buzz of discussion in the legal community. "This statute is rarely ever prosecuted by private citizens or by judges, mainly because a substantial part of our population violate it. If it's prosecuted, it opens the floodgates for people to engage in vengeance in custody cases," " said Chas Coltrane, chairman of the Family Law Section of the North Carolina Bar Association.

It amazes me that right-wing Christian Republicans would vote for Newt Gingrich. We just had Herman Cain remove himself from the 2012 presidential campaign for simply being accused of adultery. Gingrich admitted to committing adultery, more than once, yet he still tops the polls. Mr. Gingrich divorced his wife while she was in the hospital with cancer. Questions also have been raised about the money he received as a paid consultant for mortgage-lending giant Freddie Mac. Yet Mr. Gingrich is now the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination.

Imagine That *** ( 3 STARS) Eddie Murphy returned to top comic-dramatic form in this deft, charming comedy, playing a driven financial analyst whose daughter's imaginary friends seem to be handing her good stock tips. Critics applauded, but the audience stayed away in droves; it's worth seeking out before it disappears entirely, especially for families who've already seen Up twice. Opening next Friday Bruno : (Universal Pictures) Sacha Baron Cohen brings another of his flamboyant characters to the big-screen in this "gotcha" comedy, made in the Borat tradition.

There's a "new" old name suddenly in circulation that is both filled with ancient history and ripe with a revolutionary spirit for today's game-changing events. Zahra. Well-known to Muslims, Fatima az-Zahra was one of four daughters of the Prophet Muhammad. Today, Zahra is also the name of two important, outspoken women of Iran. One is Zahra Rahnavard, the courageous and charismatic wife of the allegedly defeated Iranian presidential candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi. The other is Zahra Khanum, the equally courageous and charismatic woman portrayed in a new movie, The Stoning of Soraya M., about the death of an Iranian woman on trumped-up charges of adultery.

Comedian George Carlin, who died Sunday, was best known for his "Seven Dirty Words" routine, but here are some of his one-liners that you can repeat without getting arrested: "Atheism is a non-prophet organization." "Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?" "Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things." "If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little."

Hometown -- Baltimore Current members --Todd Smith, vocals; Jasan Stepp, guitar; Brian White, bass; Jeff Siegel, keyboard; John Ensminger, drums Founded in --2002 Style --progressive metal rock Influenced by --System of a Down, Tool, Clutch, Frank Zappa Notable --The band released its most recent album, Adultery, in the spring of 2006, and recently decided to call it quits. Some of the members will continue to write together, and the band will perform one final show at Sonar on Saturday.

Florence of Arabia, by Christopher Buckley. Random House. 254 pages. $24.95 There can be no doubt that Christopher Buckley is the leading satirist of his generation, a Twain or Mencken for our times, a comic novelist who skewers his subjects so hilariously and completely that you almost feel sorry for the poor arrogant dunces when he's through with them. In Thank You for Smoking, he took on political correctness and the machinations of Big Tobacco. In Little Green Men, it was conspiracy theories, UFO crazies and the shrill, pink-faced blowhards who dominate Sunday morning TV talk shows that were eviscerated.

WASHINGTON -- A one-star Navy admiral accepted a finding of guilt yesterday on charges that he improperly steered military contracts to his partner in an adulterous affair. He agreed to early retirement at a substantially reduced pension and to penalties that included 30 days of house arrest, Navy officials said.The officer, Rear Adm. John Scudi, 54, effectively pleaded no contest to the charges at a closed administrative hearing in Norfolk, Va., which was a less severe alternative to a criminal investigation and precluded any court-martial or prison sentence.

The Baltimore County Police Department has dropped its attempt to use the state's 277-year-old adultery law to discipline three officers, a police spokesman said yesterday.Following Sunday's article in The Sun about the disciplining attempt, Police Chief Cornelius J. Behan announced that the law will not be the basis for administrative charges against the officers.E. Jay Miller, a police spokesman, citing several reasons for Chief Behan's decision, said the adultery statute is ambiguous and the county state's attorney's office refused to file criminal charges against the officers.

KATSINA, Nigeria - An appeals court overturned yesterday the conviction of the Nigerian peasant woman whose sentence of death by stoning had incited international condemnation and focused attention on Islamic law here. Amina Lawal, 32, had been convicted of adultery for having had a child out of wedlock, two years after she divorced her husband. She would have been the first woman stoned to death since 1999, when 12 states in the predominantly Muslim north began adopting strict Islamic law, or Shariah.

WASHINGTON - The moment I walked into the office this morning, Maria at the front desk pulled out the column I wrote when Kobe Bryant was arrested on allegations of sexual assault. The lead: "No way in hell." Maria likes to torture me. It has been a week since the charges were officially filed. A week since the astonishing press conference where Bryant declared his innocence of sexual assault, but confessed to committing adultery with his 19-year-old accuser. Holding hands with his wife, he said he was furious with himself, disgusted with himself.