A sex scandal exposes Sen. Paul Stanley's less-than-Godly ways
by Jeff Woods
Until his name became synonymous with hypocrite a week ago, Sen. Paul Stanley was a proud champion of traditional family values. A Sunday school teacher with a wife and two young children, he often spoke piously of the ideal home environment that only a loving married couple can provide—and of the importance of his own evangelical upbringing in molding his strict views.
His website displayed heavenly scenes of sun and sky while the words "reliable, honorable and conservative" flashed across the screen. He relentlessly pushed legislation to ban gay couples from adopting, though it would have meant hundreds of unwanted children remaining as orphans in state custody.
"The best home environment is one where mom and dad are there," Stanley said. "When you're married, there's a commitment there."
Three officials of Planned Parenthood of Memphis came to Nashville during this year's legislative session to lobby lawmakers not to kill funding for their organization. Stanley told them he'd never support Planned Parenthood.
"He told us that he didn't believe young people should have sex before marriage anyway, that his faith and church are important to him, and he wants to promote abstinence," Planned Parenthood's Joan Carr recalled last week.
Ah, those were happy, confident times for Stanley. That visit was on April 7. The next morning, we have since learned, the jig was up, when the senator received a polite text message notifying him that he was the target of blackmail.
"Good morning sir, how are you this fine day?" the text began. Stanley had been having sex with his 22-year-old intern and taking pictures of her naked in his bedroom. Her boyfriend found the photographs, and according to state investigators, he estimated their value to the senator at $10,000 to keep them private.
Carr was outraged: "Hypocrite, anyone?" she asked. "In retrospect, I think maybe Sen. Stanley meant that he just doesn't want young people to have sex with each other, thereby saving the cute young things for himself."
What came next was just as predictable as a moralizing "family values" legislator cheating on his wife. Conservatives started making excuses for Stanley and attacking his intern, McKensie Morrison, as the real villain.
Morrison's past revealed plenty of ammunition. Growing up in Port Orange, Fla., she was her high school's student body president, vice president of the Latin club and a member of the National Honor Society. But somehow her life went terribly wrong after she graduated in 2005.
Along with her boyfriend, a basketball player at her high school named Randy Mueller, she was arrested after a policeman found cocaine and a crack pipe in her backpack. The charges were dismissed, but she fell on hard times with Mueller, whom she married a few months later.
According to reports, they were basically homeless, relying on casual acquaintances for showers and food. She watched her husband beat one of these acquaintances, a 75-year-old man, with a hammer, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Mueller, who's serving a seven-year prison sentence, told police he attacked the man for making sexual advances to his wife.
Last month, the couple filed for divorce. When she became Stanley's intern, Morrison was living in Tennessee with her father, attending Austin Peay and making straight A's.
"The portrayal of this 22-year-old on various blogs and media reports as a victim is quite startling," the East Tennessee radio talk-show host Terry Frank wrote on her blog. "Both Stanley and Ms. Morrison made horrible decisions! When a state senator asked me on a date when I was an intern, I said, 'No.' He asked me, 'Why not?' and it was very easy for me to say, 'Because you're married.' I was Ms. Morrison's age."
Rep. Stacey Campfield, lending rich new meaning to the term jackass, also stood behind Stanley in his time of crisis:
"I have never heard any conservative Republican say they were perfect," he wrote on his blog. "Never one. Not on any issue. We try to do what is right, but we are not, by any stretch of the word, perfect."
Campfield also posted this as his Quote of the Day from an unidentified legislator: "Well, I guess this is just more proof: Republicans are clearly irresistible to females."
Stanley himself has remained in hiding. His only public comment was a three-sentence statement on the night the news broke. "I am the victim," it began. It's probably a good thing for Stanley that he's kept quiet since then.
Lawmakers have been trying to steer clear of reporters too. Sexual harassment of interns is thought to be commonplace at the legislature. In an email to the Post Politics blog, one ex-intern wrote: "I just hope all of this knocks those egotistical creepy men off their high horses and maybe scares them off from chasing around interns, and I can assure you that some of them did. I know some interns didn't have the best character, but they were also 22 as opposed to 50+."
On Monday, Senate GOP leader Mark Norris and Shelby County Republican Party chair Lang Wiseman called for Stanley to resign. But at the Scene's press time, there had been no word from the senator. Whether he resigns or finishes his term, his political career, thankfully, is over.
Email jwoods@nashvillescene.com.
Comments (6)
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Hey- I wonder what Planned Parenthood meant when they were involved in Eugenics? Planned Parenthood's founders were elitist eugenicists who wanted to eliminate entire groups of people? Planned Parenthood’s renowned founder, Margaret Sanger spoke to the KLAN and in Sanger’s own autobiography she openly admitted that she received an additional dozen invites from the Klan to speak with them. Planned Parenthood icon, Margaret Sanger, had on her board Lothrop Stoddard an avowed racist whose books were used as text books by the Klan. Sanger not only founded Planned Parenthood, but was a card carrying member of the American Eugenics Society. Alan Guttmacher, former Planned Parenthood Prez and (research arm of Planned Parenthood) was a Vice President of the American Eugenics Society. In fact, many of Sanger's board members were eugenic society members. one of Planned Parenthood’s members was the former Arkansas Eugenics Society office under the direction of Mrs. Edward Cornish, also on the board. It was the American Eugenics Society which influenced the Nazis under Hitler. Margaret Sanger loved eugenics and the American Eugenics Society so much, that in her publication the Birth Control Review, she described a meeting with them to merge her publication with theirs. That meeting was set-up by non other than Leon Whitney, a founder of the American Eugenics Society and a friend of the Planned Parenthood Founder who openly praised Hitler. Recently a Planned Parenthood President admitted that Planned Parenthood knowingly accepts money from racist people who want to see the black race eliminated all together. Want to label them HYPOCRITES? Want to second guess their motives? Just asking ! See all the documentation I spoke about in a film on this called: Maafa21. Listen to Sanger and her croanies racist rants here: http://www.maafa21.com
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Maybe this headed off her becoming a real politician herself by later years by only claiming that she had done coke once or twice versus living / hanging with a bunch of scum bags. Imagine if George Bush's party friends had myspace pics to show of him from his party years. Joel Watts may be the best thing for the public versus McKensie Morrison going on to work our government system and become a politician. She can not deny her actions now plus her scummy husband's past record. She certaintly didn't stand by her man- who supposedly ~defended~ her by beating a 75 year old man with a hammer! It appears that her high school and college records would have put her on the fast track for this career and she certaintly was playing up the look. Plus supposedly working for her father's insurance firm is a typical BS job to allow politicial runs. But now she burned the insider's system so no political career for her.
another hypocrite down...when will they stop preaching...typical GOP antics...its ok for _them_ to do it...they have God on their side so therefore they can rape, kill, attack other countries/religions etc because they will be forgiven...What a load. They used to tar and feather hypocrites...why don't they practice what they preach? Because they are above man's law...they only obey God's law...but hellfire if you or I commit some moral crime/so-called-sin...what a bunch of pukes...
The article never did say where the photos of this scenario are. One needs the empirical evidence before conclusions can be drawn. The writer here infers that Mr. Stanley's belief system is flawed due to his own actions. This is a composition fallacy. The actions of an adherent to a system does not determine the truth or soundness of such a system. Mr. Stanley may in fact be guilty, but there needs to be more than one witness. Today, photos can be digitally altered, so courts often question the veracity of such photos without two or more witnesses.
A lot of generalizations there, Thomas the Devil. Regardless of what this guy did, The Christian religion does allow for the possibilty (inevitability?) of making mistakes. You touched upon the fact that people are fallible. That's very observant of you. You chose to ignore the vast numbers of people who do live decent lives. I guess it's the traditional, conservative people who are now feeling the flames of persecution. Personally, I think extortion is far worse than lust. Two-parent hetero families are still best, sorry commie fruits.
Give me a break - when a Democrat is involved in a sex scandal (Edwards, Spitzer, Clinton), a hypocritical, immoral adulterer has finally been exposed for what he is. When a Republican is involved in a sex scandal, a decent, God-fearing Christian only showed he is human, and this uncharacteristic lapse in judgment should not overshadow his strong moral beliefs and dedication to his constituents. Burn the Democrats, forgive the Republicans.
