I have a friend who in her eighties is still a vibrant counselor. I had her help in a situation where one of our ministers had fallen into sexual sin. He was very visible in the church and it was a painful situation. I called her in for advice. I wasn’t really comfortable with the way I had seen these situations handled.

She suggested we simply tell a large group of leaders the situation. Seek help and suspend the ministry of the pastor. And simply tell the public that he was terminated for behavior unbecoming a ministry. Her decades of experience had taught her that announcing such misbehavior publicly usually had the effect of causing more misbehavior in the followers. And we weren’t lying. Here’s her key statement, “the recent generations talk too easily about sexual matters. It should be more private a matter.”

I agreed with her then and do now. I am not for hiding anything. But do so many need to hear so much. I found Bill Clinton’s foray’s more than troublesome. But did we need to report in such detail the crimes? Other eras wouldn’t have.

Now we are informed that Governor Sarah Palin’s seventeen-year-old daughter is pregnant and planning to marry the father of her child. Did I really have to know that? I don’t think so. Governor Palin is running for Vice President, not my pastor. And even if she were are her daughter’s miscues an absolute reflection upon her. Anyone who has been parent to a seventeen year old in today’s culture would say no.

I mused when I heard the announcement whether if Governor Palin were a man would the announcement have been made. Part of me says no. But then I remember the treatment the Bush girls got from the press. Where has our propriety gone? What happened to family issues staying in the family? Our culture has become ugly in my book. I really feel it’s none of my business or yours how a Vice President’s daughter behaves.

Is a young girl’s emotional health not more important than having to head off a savage attack by an uncouth media? I don’t think so. I wish the family had not made the announcement. It isn’t any of our business. And for how long must a child live with the knowledge that the whole world knows about her mistake? I suspect for a long time.

I have a list I keep. It is things I want to forget that I have done and things I want to forget for others. I check them off and destroy them. We owe it to one another to have a forget it list. I have decided to put Bill Clinton on my list. And then there is the fall of my past staff leader. I don’t need to remember these things. The Psalms report to us “as far as the east is from the west so has God removed our sins.”

If you forget my sins I’ll forget yours. If you hurt me twice I am told to forgive you twice. I pray we can become a society that has class again. Governor Palin we applaud your courage but wish we lived in a world where your family could be unharmed by our avarice for personal dirt.