Public rates politicians’ sexual, financial lapses on different moral scales

Americans are tougher on politicians for their financial misdeeds
than their sexual ones, but men are more willing than women to tolerate
sexual misbehavior in their elected officials.

Across different
religious groups, U.S. adults consider it worse for a politician to
cheat on taxes or take bribes than to commit adultery or send sexually
explicit messages to someone who's not their spouse, according to a
survey released June 22 by the Public Religion Research Institute.

"There's
a dramatic difference when people are evaluating public officials'
financial versus sexual misbehavior," said Daniel Cox, PRRI's research
director. "A significant number of folks think they can separate public
officials' personal and public lives" and tend to think of sexual
misbehavior as personal and therefore private.