This story, which exploded my head, got very little commentary on Ethics Alarms last week, which surprised me. Maybe I wasn’t sufficiently clear: sex workers, prostitutes and whack jobs have run for state legislatures from time immemorial, but they are usually considered fringe campaigns and publicity stunts (you know, like Donald Trump’s campaign in 2015) and considered barely worth discussing by reporters. But the Democratic Party in Virginia is actively defending Gibson, really and truly saying that Gibson’s conduct online is just fine because no law was broken. This stance magnifies the possibility that the entire party has 1) lost its collective mind and 2) now has the comprehension of ethics, civics, society and public service of the average muskrat.

Now Gibson, who, if you haven’t read the post, has engaged in graphic sex acts with her husband in videos for the porn site Chaturbate even as she in running to be a Virginia lawmaker, is being enthusiastically defended by her party, despite the fact that the fun couple was offering to take requests for their porn performances in exchange for money. “Y’all can watch me pee if you tip me and some tokens,” Gibson can be heard saying in one graphic videos. “Again, I’m raising money for a good cause.”

I thought the fact that Gibson and her party were actually claiming that Republicans and the media were engaging in illegal “revenge porn” and somehow doing something wrong by alerting the public that a candidate was misrepresenting her character, activities and kinks in her campaign material was sufficient to ping ethics alarms, but maybe not. So let’s drill down more deeply into the muck:

• Professionals, meaning people who perform a needed service for the public good and not for their own benefit (that’s why we can trust them), have an ethical obligation to provide the public with information they need to know regarding the qualifications and conduct of such professionals. This is the Duty of Communication, and especially important for candidates for elected office.
• Yet somehow, that fresh faced, smiling young “health professional” above, while telling voters that she is a mother, a nurse and has a “genuine passion for ensuring the well-being of the community,” leaves out the fact that she also has a sick need to perform sex acts in public, on a platform available to children—including her own children—and does so for financial consideration.
• The public has a right to know this, because many members of the public (once, before the Left went certifiably mad, we could have assumed all of them) wouldn’t want such an individual making decisions that effect their lives because their values, character and judgment is warped. Even if a voter, like the Virginia Democratic Party, apparently, thinks it’s completely responsible and normal to offer to piss for spectators “for a good cause,” that doesn’t change the fact that a candidate for high office has an obligation to be transparent bout such unconventional non-private practices.
• The videos, for example, put a different spin on “special interests,” don’t they? Gibson and her husband clearly cater to special interests if the price is right, so that “standing up to special interests” boast is at very least a dubious one, if not an outright lie.
• I wonder what Susanna would do with her dog “for a good cause.” That’s not a joke:  her videos are necessary information that the public has a right to know about in order to assess her fitness and qualifications for office.
• Note that Susanna explicitly embraces Rationalization #13. The Saint’s Excuse: “It’s for a good cause.” This explicit endorsement of “the ends justifies the means” should be a warning to Virginia citizens, because The Saint’s Excuse is one of the most deadly and dangerous rationalizations on the list. Of course, her entire party has made “the ends justifies the means” a part of its operating philosophy, just like Big Brother. If the aspiring online porn queen is fair representatives of the values Democrats and progressives now stand for, the public has a right to know that, too. They’d better know it.
• Their defense of Gibson, who is indefensible, also show us that Democrats have apparently declined so far in ethics comprehension ethically to the point that they are emulating Marion Barry. The crack-smoking, adulterous, crony supporting disgrace whose  time as mayor of D.C. thoroughly tainted the political and social culture of the nation’s Capitol to this day, was the author of  Rationalization #4, Marion Barry’s Misdirection, or “If it isn’t illegal, it’s ethical.” Sadly, a lot of Americans believe that, qualifying them as ethics dunces, but for a whole party to promote that misconception is unforgivable. There are too many bad, wrongful, cruel, destructive and unethical acts that are nonetheless legal to list, and anyone with rudimentary ethics alarms should know it. Lying is wrong, but legal. Most betrayals, such as adultery, are legal. Being a bad role model is legal, being disrespectful and impolite is legal, bullying is legal, racism is legal, and on and on…and yet Virginia Democrats are really and truly saying that Gibson’s conduct online is just fine because no law was broken.