Maybe It’s Not About Temptation–Maybe It’s About Gossip

This is not an April Fool’s joke–this is a true story. According to Newsbusters, NBC’s Today Show devoted two minutes to whether or not it was good policy for Vice-President Pence to go out to eat alone with a woman who is not his wife. Evidently they thought this was an important topic.

Here is a portion of the discussion:

CARSON DALY: Sounds like an old-school policy that Mike Pence would be on board with.

GUTHRIE: I think it makes some sense. It’s like, I don’t know if I would – I don’t think I would ask my husband to have that policy, but I think it’s, like, probably wise.

SHRIVER: Does she have that policy?

GUTHRIE: I don’t know.

SHRIVER: Mrs. Pence, yeah.

GUTHRIE: I’m not sure.

MELVIN: That’s a good question.

DALY: But why? Why wouldn’t you have dinner with – ?

MELVIN: Well, I mean, I think from his point of view, the easiest way to resist temptation is to avoid it. Not to say that the Vice President – you know, I’m not assuming anything.

DALY: That’s just because they say men and women can’t just be friends, it goes back to that whole thing.

Somehow I can just imagine the news reports if the Vice-President was spotted by a reporter eating dinner in a restaurant with a woman other than his wife. This policy is called wisdom. You might want to look at it as avoiding temptation, but you also might want to look at it as avoiding gossip that might be hurtful to the people involved.

I am simply amazed that the Today Show spent two minutes on this. Many of the religious leaders in America have similar policies–just to avoid the appearance of evil and to avoid gossip. It’s called common sense!