Labor Day weekend is the perfect time for a resignation, and the pressure from the GOP couldn't get much more intense on Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID). It's hard to imagine he's announced a Saturday press conference for any other reason. Beyond the hypocrisy, the sordid details, the prurient peeping of media into cruising rituals of married men seeking same-sex thrills, what does this mean politically?

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council worried in the scandal's first news cycle that so-called "values voters" would be disgusted and not turn out in 2008. By the second day he was back on message, along with Gary Bauer of American Values, suggesting this scandal would pass, likely with resignation. Bauer somewhat sheepishly admitted to Chris Matthews on Hardball that social conservatives will be motivated in 2008 by the only thing that really matters; the U.S. Supreme Court.

By day three of the bad-naughty-nasty-boy-scandal, Tom Delay was resurrected, hammering home to Matt Lauer on the Today Show that, "There are scandals that need to be addressed. Republicans address them, Democrats re-elect them." He of course referred to the swift handling of former Rep. Mark Foley, forgetting Senator David Vitter (R-LA), an admitted client of the DC Madame scandal that broke in July, still serving in the Senate. Delay also failed to mention that Craig, and other GOPers get re-elected despite rumors swirling around them for years, in Craig's case since at least 1982.

But what Perkins, Bauer and Delay are signaling is important to note, even though like their policies, there is a wide stance between their spin and the truth.

Perkins, and to a lesser degree Bauer, are purists and would gladly use episodes like these to further purify the GOP, a party they have slowly taken over during the past 30 years, attempting to remake it in their idolized image. Delay, who claimed his adultery was better than former GOP Speaker Newt Gingrich's because it didn't happen while prosecuting President Bill Clinton for indiscretions, could hardly be called a purist, but he served their purposes well until his forced resignation due to scandal.

The uncomfortable but necessary alliance between social conservative purists like Perkins and the unflinching political expediency of Delay has meant that the purists have put up with people they would otherwise exclude, just to keep the GOP coalition together; people like Mark Foley, David Vitter, Larry Craig. The "Johns and the Closeted" of the GOP have been tolerated if it meant a majority, especially in the Senate where judicial nominees are confirmed.

During the Mark Foley scandal it was clear staffers, and likely then-Speaker Dennis Hastert, knew of Foley's orientation and under-age page flirtation. As the Craig scandal wears on, it is becoming clear that many in DC knew more about him than they let on. How long did social conservatives defend Tom Delay and other Republicans who resigned in scandal, and have admitted personal foible, all the while claiming moral superiority?

So where do Perkins-type purists go? What does it say about him and fundamentalists in general, and their vaunted claim to be the only people with values, if in the end they are shown to be willing to compromise everything they preach for the sake of political power and the ability to impose their beliefs through the US Supreme Court.

Social Conservatives don't care about Craig's personal hypocrisy, only how it impacts the ability to regain majorities. They seem perfectly happy to let rumors circulate so long as when it comes time to vote, the GOP pedophiles, johns and toilet trolls vote the far right way.

What I find disgusting about this whole thing is not hypocrisy. What I find it disgusting is that we have a culture now where the Minneapolis Police Department has to have stakeouts. Gary Bauer, American Values.

Are those really values? Is that really moral character? Is that really what Jesus would do, divert attention away from hypocrisy, or is that more like the Pharisees? Bauer went on to say that the culture doesn't know right from wrong, that's what causes married men to cruise toilets, never once acknowledging a culture that honestly and openly discusses sexuality as something natural could avoid hypocrisy, personally and politically.

Investigative Sergeant Dave Karsnial had it right at the end of his questioning of Sen. Craig when he said, "Embarrassing, embarrassing. No wonder why we’re going down the tubes."

Our democracy is not threatened by an individual's struggles no matter what they are, it is threatened by those who stare us in the face and lie about what they are doing, or why, or how they are willing to sacrifice their values for power.

Social conservative power brokers have lied to us for a generation. They have played upon sincerely anti-abortion sentiments of devout people and held our nation's business hostage, ignoring women's health and privacy, and using the cover of the abortion issue to mask efforts to make contraception illegal. They have rhetorically bashed young teens working their way through understanding sexuality, and deprived them of education to protect themselves from unintended pregnancy and disease. They have stigmatized people with HIV, who are gay, or had abortions, all the while claiming compassion.

Senator Larry Craig's hypocrisy is a mere symptom of a larger cancer that has been growing on the body politic. As former President Jimmy Carter said when interviewed in Christiane Amanpour's God's Warriors, "the fundamentalist finds it impossible to admit when he is wrong. To do so is to say that God is wrong."

Purists like Perkins may get their way, they may purify the GOP or they may leave it altogether to found a Christian-Dominionist Party, though they'll call it something more palatable. Those are really the only two choices they have, other than admitting they have no real values and manipulate people to gain the power to impose their will on the rest of us, putting up with whomever they have to, to get it.

The hypocrisy of Sen. Craig's public votes and private actions is much deeper and includes the hypocrisy of all social conservatives who stigmatize people they deem immoral, prey on people's fears, and divide our democracy by making it so tawdry many people choose not to participate, giving them disproportionate advantage.

Sen. Craig will likely leave the Senate in disgrace, but social conservatives are increasingly being seen as the source of the hypocrisy. It is unfair to blame individuals and not see the larger picture. Social conservatives need to accept responsibility for what they have done to our political discourse. Making sure people see beyond the tawdry details of scandal will be the voters way of resigning social conservatives to history, as they now wash their hands of Sen. Larry Craig.