Here’s the real outrage in Courser-Gamrat sex scandal

Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat can sleep with whomever they like.

And they can even moralize to everyone else about the virtues of religion and marriage even while they spoil their own vows.

Neither the Constitution nor any statute prohibits hypocrisy by public officials, and as just the latest example of apparently double-speaking proselytizers, Courser, R-Lapeer, and Gamrat, R-Plainwell, are merely taking their place in a pitiful, bedraggled queue that’s become so predictable it no longer shocks.

But what these two members of the state House may not do, ever, is use the public resources of their elected offices to abet or hide their personal shenanigans.

We’ve all seen that before — in cases stretching from Detroit’s City Hall to the Legislature to Congress.

And the consequence must always be the same: an unceremonious adios.

If Courser and Gamrat did, indeed, coax state staffers to lie about an affair, or use staffers’ time — on the taxpayers’ dime — in a bizarre attempt to mitigate the fallout from an extramarital affair, they’ve got to go. Period.

The circumstances of Courser and Gamrat’s alleged offense, reported Friday in the Detroit News, are so outlandish that it would be easy to deem the account not credible, had a now-fired staffer not captured the exchange in an audio recording. Courser confirmed to the News that it was his voice on tape.

Rumors had swirled for months in Lansing that the freshmen tea party lawmakers were having an affair (both are married). In May, an e-mail was sent to some Republicans claiming that Courser had been caught engaging in “paid male-on-male sex behind a prominent Lansing night club,” calling him a “bisexual porn-addicted sex deviant.”

The e-mail was devised by Courser as a “controlled burn,” a recording made by ex-staffer Ben Graham appears to show, an attempt to smear Courser with an allegation so sensational that news of a garden-variety extramarital affair would seem tame in comparison. It’s distasteful, although unsurprising, that Courser believed that a bigoted and harmful characterization of bisexuality or homosexuality would be a damning allegation.

Graham refused, encouraging Courser to confess to the affair and resign, displaying a sense of integrity his former employer seems to lack. He and another aide who reportedly objected to the ersatz smear campaign were fired.

Because Courser asked a state staffer to send the e-mail, state House Speaker Kevin Cotter, R-Mt. Pleasant, has asked the House Budget Office to investigate whether the pair miused state resources. Cotter has said he’ll pursue disciplinary action, should it become appropriate.

Yet the bureaucratic rules that will circumscribe such an investigation can’t account for the full import of Courser and Gamrat’s actions.

It’s a salacious story, and there’s plenty to snicker over. But there’s a difference between infidelity, however painful it may be for the individuals whose lives it touches, and an abuse of public trust.

It’s tempting to dismiss the smallness of Courser and Gamrat’s apparent offense. If staffers’ time was misused, the loss to taxpayers is in the tens — not hundreds or thousands — of dollars.

But there’s a bigger issue at stake: Public officials are, and should be, held to a higher standard. Constituents’ trust is vested in the men and women they elect to high office. When that trust is broken, it is always for the same reason: An elected official has deemed his or her own self-interest superior to the interests of the people.

We’re not naive enough to believe that self interest is foreign to politicians. But our greatest leaders understand that they don’t serve themselves at constituents’ expense.

Courser and Gamrat, it seems, don’t get it. And that is why, if the charge against them is proved, they have to go.