We don’t want to point fingers, and god knows we don’t always get it right, but there are a lot of conservatives in the news this week that seem to be engaging in family-values politicking. And there are a lot of other news items this week suggesting that conservatives don’t have a leg, much less a platform, to stand on.

Take the Catholic agencies in Massachusetts, the one place in America where marriage rights are equal. They’re threatening to fire anyone who marries a same-sex partner, including school teachers at Catholic schools, church janitors and the many people who work tirelessly at the far-reaching nonprofit organization Catholic Charities. Then there are the Southern Baptists (again), who have decided to split from the Baptist World Alliance because it is relatively tolerant of gays and lesbians. There are the Boy Scouts, who, as Senior Reporter Travis Bone outlines in a news feature in this issue, openly discriminate against not only gays but atheists, and insist on their right to do this in publicly-subsidized venues. In fact, the Boy Scouts, where many of us grew up learning how to be good citizens, good family members and playing kickball at picnics with our mothers and fathers, have in recent years come out looking pretty darn mean.

None of these groups look to us like good examples of family values. In fact, they all look scary precisely because they are willing to put a warped idea of “traditional” values over the best traditional American value of all, equality.

And when it comes to politicians and family values, well, let’s not even go there – just think of the differences between, say, Newt Gingrich (who allegedly divorced a wife dying of cancer), Ronald Reagan, Rush Limbaugh and President Bush, and, say, Jimmy Carter, Nancy Pelosi or even Bill Clinton, who is nothing if not devoted to his daughter.

But when it comes to politicians publicly stumping for family values while privately doing something altogether different, this week brought the best possible example in the form of a U.S. Senate candidate from Illinois, Jack Ryan. Ryan is engaged in a bitter custody battle with former wife Jeri Ryan, also known as Seven of Nine on “Star Trek: Voyager” and more recently as a regular on the TV drama “Boston Public”. While declaring a pro-family, anti-gay campaign for Senate, the Republican Ryan has found himself suddenly being abandoned by Republican supporters this week following the release of court papers wherein Jeri Ryan accused the candidate of taking her to sex clubs and trying to get her to engage in public sex – incidents that she claimed were traumatic to her and which she was unable to get over.

Let’s be clear here: Who are we to judge if someone, even a Republican mind you, has kinky tastes? We’ve no problem with interesting sex when it’s mutually consensual; we do, however, have a problem with hypocrisy.

When it comes to families, god knows we don’t always get it right. One of the saddest stories in the news this week is the break-up of the gay Kentucky couple who became fathers of quadruplets, a split that became public when Michael Meehan requested a restraining order against partner Thomas Dysarz, citing domestic violence (a request denied by a judge who ruled there was insufficient evidence). We’ll be generous to our adversaries and blame it on the fact that all families have problems and struggles, especially those with young children, and not on the fact that the couple faced additional challenges such as anti-gay protests at their children’s christening, and legal problems that included a battle for full custody. Incidentally, during the court custody battle last year, opposing attorney Martin D. East quoted the Old Testament, citing the example of Abraham and Sarah as a good example of surrogacy parenting.

We’re glad East brought up the Old Testament because it highlights the fact that, in spite of Catholic, Southern Baptist and religious conservatives’ claims, biblical characters give us no great examples of family values, a concept which – like religious fundamentalism –is a relatively recent, 20th century idea. When Sarah was too old, Abe just went to Hagar; David was hardly monogamous; the sensual Song of Solomon has nothing to do with procreation; and Jesus himself commissioned his 12 disciples not to go home to their wives and children but instead to “take up your cross and follow me” – all well and good but not much material there to support our Republican family-values crusaders.

The point for the politicians and the Jack Ryans of America is this: Campaign for family values all you want, but if you stretch that campaign to include legislation and stump speeches that seek to deny us the right to our own loving families, you better make sure your family life is perfect. Because we will be waiting, watching and writing.