Is Mark Sanford’s infidelity more acceptable because he loves his girlfriend?

At his press conference last week, the South Carolina governor said he was still in love with his girlfriend, and that the relationship was not over.

And that’s new.

But does that make his infidelity O.K.? Or at least a little more understandable?

God gets to judge Michael Jackson

You don’t.

More from Valerie Elverton Dixon at God’s Politics.

I actually did hike the Appalachian Trail. No. Really.

No Argentina honey for me.

Every year I accompany my friends Helen and Melissa up north to hike the AT (we figured out they started hiking together eight years ago, and I horned in three years after that). We all bring something special to the table (we like to think we do, anyway) but mostly, we create a fabulous mix of funny. I woke myself up laughing this morning thinking about our capers and I was home in my comfy bed.

The hikes are sometimes grueling — but then you get to a hut and there sits a 4-year-old swinging his feet and you think “Did that child just helicopter in?” New Hampshire is rocky, and there is a point of each day when I ask myself, “Why do I do this?” And then someone will do or say something that still, at almost-50, I find funny, and I have to stop climbing rocks to laugh.

So I believe that I hike with my friends for the giggles.

I love these women. I love these hikes. I will write more later — on this and other hot topics of the day — but let me go on record saying that unlike Gov. Mark Sanford, whose office said he was off hiking the AT when he was actually off breaking a Commandment with a girlfriend:  In our stretch in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, we slept in huts on bunk beds sandwiched among with other smelly, farting campers. No sex was had.

Dear DJ blog readers

Every once in a while, people ought to step back and take a deep breath.

I intend to do that for a few days, away from the Internet, the television, the telephone, the flush toilet.

I am taking a break, and I hope you’ll take one, too. Go dance in a meadow. Order a blue drink. Try out a new curse word, and I shall do the same.

But do please come back. I certainly will.

Hey! Homosexuals love Jesus, too!

A new poll by a conservative author says that homosexuals are just as likely as straight people to believe in God (and Jesus).

The poll found that no matter their orientation, people from both groups:

• Believe that Satan is real
• Believe that people have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs with others who believe differently
• Contend that good people can earn their way into Heaven through their goodness
• Participate in house churches at roughly the same level

More on the poll — and George Barna — here. Does this mean there’s a place in heaven for all of us? Because if so, I am so relieved. I want to believe that heaven’s a big place and it has room for all of us.

Gov. Stephen Colbert, of South Carolina

The video’s here (and isn’t his Iraq haircut growing out nicely)?

In the 40 seconds in which the self-appointed governor ruled the Palmetto State (thus filling the power vacuum left by the recently re-appeared Gov. Mark Sanford, and don’t get me started on that), he was only able to issue one edict, that all South Carolina dogs walk upright.

I like his thinking, and wish he’d had more time to show the kind of leadership South Carolina needs.

As newly-appointed governor of Missouri (from all I can tell, the current governor’s still in office – but wait! It’s a guy named Nixon? – but hey! everyone can use a little help now and then), I order all skeeters into Oklahoma, the state to shift out of Tornado Alley (maybe farther west?), and all native neo-Nazis to hell.

Thank you. And have a nice day.

What if we add “single mothers” to our list-of-people-to-help?

The idea is not original with me. I stole it from Steve Holt at God’s Politics.

I am fond of James 1:27, which sums up religion as this:

…to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

If you read Brother Holt’s piece, you see that believers are encouraged — commanded, even — to look after widows. In the time and place of the recording of the scriptures, widows relied on their family’s for their support, and that was not always a workable system. Thus, believers were called to step in.

These days, religious folk — the Christian church, in particular — has a spotty record of aiding single mothers. So what if we broadened our definition of “pure and undefiled religion,” and included care for single mothers and their children?

Rock on, Brother Holt. I like your thinking.

Oh, boy. Jenny Sanford asked her husband to leave.

That was two weeks ago (it says so here), and that’s why when she was asked, she really didn’t know the whereabouts of her husband, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

(He was in Argentina having an affair, which you would know if you would just stop going out and living your life and — instead — strap yourself to your computer or television like the rest of us.)

Good luck getting on her web page (www.sc.governor.com/about/jenny). The server’s pretty busy. So I guess the governor’s request to leave his family alone at his confession/press conference is being ignored. Already, her Wikipedia entry includes her husband’s announcement of infidelity.

She released a statement, that included this:

I believe wholeheartedly in the sanctity, dignity and importance of the institution of marriage. I believe that has been consistently reflected in my actions. When I found out about my husband’s infidelity I worked immediately to first seek reconciliation through forgiveness, and then to work diligently to repair our marriage. We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong. I therefore asked my husband to leave two weeks ago.

The idea was that they’d reconcile, she said. And then, in her statement, she quoted Psa. 127, the chapter about having the Lord build your house, and treating your children as rewards.

Why does this feel like it’s happened to real people, as opposed to plastic political figureheads?

A handy guide to confessions for Gov. Sanford

I offer this with love to South Carolina’s Gov. Mark Sanford, who just gave the longest, windiest apology in the history of humankind (I’m pretty sure about this) for being unfaithful to his wife.

Sanford’s been the topic of conversation for the last few days, as his whereabouts were unknown. Staff members said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, his wife suggested he went to do some writing away from the distraction of their four sons, but it turns out he was in Argentina breaking the Seventh Commandment — Thou Shalt Not Befriend Someone And Then Have Sex With Them Unless You’re Married.

Today, Sanford gave a painful apology to just about every one he’s ever met and then said he’d been unfaithful.

Look, everyone sins and every one falls short of the glory of God, but I wish his staff had bum-rushed him away from the microphone sooner. When we confessed our sins at the Fourth and Forest church of Christ, we walked to the front of the auditorium, and filled out a little response card that was then read to the congregation. Given the size of those cards, you didn’t have enough room to go long, which was, in itself, a blessing because one can get pretty detailed recounting one’s miscues, as Gov. Sanford just demonstrated.

So next time you’re confessing — at your Own True Church or standing in front of a bank of microphones — KISS (keep it short, stupid). I say this with love.

I’m listening to a recorded discussion about marriage

The topic is marriage equality, but it strikes me that other than arguing over whether same-sex couples should be able to enter into a state-recognized union, have we ever really defined marriage?

We can say it’s a legal union between two consenting adults, but what’s the deeper meaning? And what’s the point?

So take it away, DJers. Define marriage. Have at it. Go crazy.