In a Sunday piece for Salon, writer Lyz Lenz argued that conservative Christians make a glaring, politically motivated exception to their belief that “a marriage is forever” when they “attack [Hillary] Clinton for staying with her husband,” Bill.
Lenz, who noted that she’s been married for eleven years and has two children, commented that Donald Trump’s backers “largely identify as Bible-believing Christians…And Christians love a good redemption story…Numerous friends and relatives of mine have been counseled [against divorce] by pastors and Christian counselors, who argue that couples ought to persist in marriages where there has been infidelity, cruelty and worse, because God’s call to a lifelong union supersedes all others.”
Nonetheless, she wrote, “within this tale of marriage and redemption, there doesn’t seem to be room” for Hillary, “who is criticized for doing what Trump supporters tell others to do every day -- value the sanctity of marriage. Clinton’s reasoning for reconciling with her husband even seems to follow these traditional teachings…And yet, somehow when the Clintons stay together, it’s a moral failing.”
Lenz concluded (bolding added):
The answer seems to fall along party lines. An enduring marriage, even when modeled so solidly by the Clintons, seems to be denied the label of “Christian” -- not for lack of faith on the Clintons’ part, but for a lack of grace in those who hold them in judgment…
Only those whose lives and loves are wrapped up in a marriage can accurately judge whether it is successful. And it’s not for me, or you, or Donald Trump, to tell Hillary Clinton otherwise.
A shortcoming of Lenz’s piece is that it doesn’t address the possibility (some conservatives would say the strong likelihood) that the Clintons have stayed married partly (or entirely) for reasons that have nothing to do with religious faith.
