Sex has caused problems for us humans ever since we decided to be fruitful and multiply.

Last week, we were reminded of that when former Speaker of the House of Representatives Dennis Hastert was sentenced to 15 months in prison, thanks to something that happened many years ago.

Hastert joins a crowd of prominent men who have been disgraced by sex scandals in the past 30 years or so, so many that I’m a little afraid we’ve become somewhat inured to the effects of such episodes. While that may be so, there are some scandals we find especially disturbing.

We know some men cheat on their wives, for example, but we generally don’t expect clergymen to be among the cheaters. So, back in the 1980s, many people were shocked when television evangelist Jim Bakker was caught paying a large sum of money to a church secretary who accused him of rape. The sheer hypocrisy of his actions was shocking to many people. He was never charged with rape, but the simple fact that a preacher of the gospel climbed into bed with a woman not his wife was evil enough to shock Christians who followed him.

Other ministers, most notably Jimmy Swaggart, have been caught up in scandals involving sex since then, and it’s hard to say how much damage has been caused. I suspect some Christians lost trust in their pastors. The faith of some may have been weakened, and some may have abandoned their faith. Those who criticize or reject religion in general and Christianity in particular probably believe their cause has been strengthened by the scandals.

Scandals involving our political leaders quite likely had similar negative effects on our national spirit. The accusations and revelations against Bill Clinton certainly demeaned the presidency, and probably made many Americans less confident in our nation’s leadership. Some elected officials were forced out of office because of adultery or sexual harassment, and some went down in flames for their misdeeds. Former Sen. John Edwards was exploring a run for the White House and portraying himself as a happily married man bravely standing by his cancer-stricken wife. Instead, his career and his marriage ended when a child was born to a woman he was having an affair with. Another happily married and devout Christian, Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, was caught in a lie after flying to Argentina to visit his mistress. He admitted to the affair, but was rather defiant about accepting any blame.

The height of hypocrisy was probably reached during the impeachment proceedings against Clinton, when several of those who voted to impeach him, including Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, had been or were currently involved in affairs, and a whole lot of others were keeping skeletons in their closets.

Maybe that’s why voters, by this time, sometimes voted as though such behavior didn’t matter much. In South Carolina, a state that proudly claims a place in the so-called Bible Belt, voters elected Sanford to Congress despite his adultery. Voters in Minnesota and California both chose governors with notably cavalier attitudes toward sex. On his way to the Minnesota state House, for example, Jesse Ventura told voters that he had participated in orgies in the past, and during his campaign for governor in California, several women accused Arnold Schwarzenegger of groping them. 

Schwarzenegger fathered a child with his housekeeper during his term. As for Clinton, his approval rating among voters reached its highest point, 73 percent, just before the impeachment trial began.

(In the interest of full disclosure: I gave Clinton a pass on his behavior with the aide. It appeared to me that the aide was not a victim, but a willing participant in the affair, and I felt his guilt over a personal transgression was between him and God. While the affair was reprehensible, it had no bearing on whether his administration’s policies were benefitting the nation.)

Hastert’s bothers me more than the others. It is different in that it doesn’t involve adultery, but the sexual abuse of at least four members of the wrestling team he coached more than 40 years ago. The abuse was discovered because he was paying hush money to one of his victims. Ironically, he is going to prison, not for child abuse, but violating banking rules by withdrawing the money.

As a former teacher, I find Hastert’s abuse of his wrestlers a greater evil than any of the others recounted in this essay. Young athletes often hold their coaches in high esteem, and in my experience as the father of a high school wrestler, that is especially true of wrestlers. Hastert took advantage of the respect his wrestlers had for him as well as his position of authority when he abused them. The one victim who spoke at the sentencing hearing said Hastert had ruined his life, and the sister to one who is deceased said the same was true of her brother.

Further, just as people may have lost trust in Christian ministers because of their scandals, so might students and parents lose trust in teachers because of Hastert’s transgressions.

From my own personal vantage point, I find all of the behaviors recounted here to be inexplicable. But I also know that they are not peculiar to our times. History provides plenty of evidence that illicit sexual activity has been practiced all through history.

The fact is that humans, even those of us who are Christians, are prone to doing evil. The good thing, though, is that we are also capable of good, even exemplary, behavior. If we make doing good our priority, we might be able to conquer the evil.

If we can pull that off, we can build a better world where no one, not even the politicians, can do evil.