Columnist E.J. Dion of The Washington Post on now-disgraced, and now ex-congressman, Mark Souder who resigned last week when news broke that he’d had an affair with a member of his staff.

I always thought he was the real deal, both serious and thoughtful in his approach to religious and political questions. I disagreed with him on many things but not on everything.

So I do hope that Souder finds a way to work out his redemption. But it is precisely because this story hits me personally that I want to shout as forcefully as I can to my conservative Christian friends: Enough!

Enough with dividing the world between moral, family-loving Christians and supposedly permissive, corrupt, family-destroying secularists.

Read the quote in context here.

Yup. I think “enough” is a pretty good choice not just in social or human terms but in terms of political strategy.

To the extent one could ever argue that progressives have really been permissive, corrupt, or family-destroying (or, for that matter, irreligious) it’s certainly not the case that they’re the exclusive source of such permissiveness, corruption, or family destruction. And meanwhile, to the extent one could ever argue that Souder’s conservative-style Christianity has ever been moral or family-loving (or, considering how much of Jesus’s teaching stands in opposition to their political objectives, recognizably Christian!) it’s certainly not the case that they’re the exclusive source of such morality or love of family or even sincere religious faith.

I mean, sure, it’s worth considering that the Pharisees were the dominant political force in 1st Century Jerusalem. And they were so “observant” of Biblical laws they literally squeezed their wine through mesh to filter out tiny but non-kosher insects (i.e. “straining at gnats.) But as Jesus himself pointed out (Matthew 23:24) for all of Mr. Souder’s and his sex partner’s pious recordings of abstinence-only videos, and for all his recent protestations that their couplings only proved his videos were necessary and correct, the bottom line is that Souder and, I’m afraid, far too many of his fellow would-be-dominant political force have been blindly swallowing (equally non-kosher) camels since roughly the 1980 election.

The solution, my dears, and the key to salvation if one is as Christian as Mr. Souder (or Ms. Palin, or Mr. Sanford, or Mr. Gingrich, or Ms. Haley) claim to be and claim to wish others would become, is not to crusade against those who don’t strain enough gnats but to emulate those who swallow fewer camels.

Enough!