Religion, Power, and Sex

What is it with political and religious standing that sends folks over the libidinous precipice?

The House Ethics committee is looking into alleged sexual harassment charges against Democratic Representative Eric Massa from New York.

Hindu holy man Nithyananda Swami has been arrested on charges of obscenity surrounding the release of a video showing him having a menage-a-trois.

Though old news, Mark Sanford contributed a new colloquialism to the vernacular.  "Hiking the Appalachian Trail" no longer means what it used to.

Pope Benedict is busy figuring out ways to apologize and seem genuinely concerned about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church while avoiding actually doing something about it.

And federal prosecutors are going after Doug Perlitz, a Fairfield, Conn. resident who is charged with having sex with underage boys enrolled in the schools that he is working to establish in earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

Perlitz is not a priest or politician, but apparently the Rev. Paul Carrier is somehow involved in a potential cover-up.  Also, Perlitz established his educational programs with help from the Order of Malta, a Catholic charity group that happens to share its name with the island that Pope Benedict just recently visited.

This is all getting pretty ridiculous.

It seems that even those in positions of power and respect are just the same bunny rabbits the rest of the population is.  We all want someone warm to snuggle with -- but it seems lately that those in positions of power and authority lose any kind of rational sense of right and wrong in their erotic pursuits.

Though all of these cases are disturbing on some level, the one that really bugs me is the one about Rep. Massa.  He confessed to Fox News that he groped a staffer in a tickle fight, but that it wasn't sexual.

It wasn't sexual.  During a what?  Eh?  You have got to be kidding me.  A tickle fight?  Even if it isn't sexual, any one of us working stiffs would be so much chum if we engaged in tickle fights at work, because that would mean WE WEREN'T WORKING!!!  The workplace is for getting work done, for Pete's sake.

Honestly, can our political and religious leaders please try a little harder to keep it in their pants while they're at work?  Please?