That song is a high;ight from the film of Broadway musical “Li’l Abner,” based on what was once the most popular political satire comic strip in the funny papers. I immediately thought of it (I’ve staged it many times in musical revues, and written parody lyrics in various decades) when I read the gob-smacking story of Christian Ziegler and his wife, which could have been made up by an evil AI bot dedicated to making Republicans look as hypocritical and ridiculous as possible.
Ziegler has been accused of sexual assault, but that’s just the tip of a very messy iceberg.
CNN obtained a search warrant affidavit from the Florida Center for Government Accountability. It indicates that Ziegler and his wife Bridget planned a “three-way” with the alleged victim and complainant on the day of the alleged assault. “When the victim learned that Bridget could not make it, she changed her mind and canceled with Christian,” the document says.
Well, that’s perfectly reasonable! Let’s not be prudes: Should kinky sex disqualify someone from being the head of a state political party that strives to appeal to conservative values? Only if the public finds out about it: call this the “Kinky Republican State Official Principle.” If you are going to engage in private conduct that will pull you down on the public’s cognitive dissonance scale, you had better make certain the fun stays private, and if you can’t, don’t do it or resign first.
Surveillance video showed Ziegler arriving at the alleged victim’s residence on the day he raped her, if her allegations are true. The victim told investigators she “opened her apartment door to walk her dog;” Christian “entered the apartment and raped her on a bar stool,” according to the affidavit. She said she told Christian “she was not in a place to consent” because “she had been drinking tequila all day.” The woman called her sister later and told her she had been raped, the affidavit states; police interviewed the sister and confirmed the details of the phone call. Bridget Ziegler, according to the affidavit, told detectives she knew the alleged victim through her husband and confirmed having a three-way sexual encounter including her husband and the woman “over a year ago and that it only happened one time.”
The GOP chair admitted to having sex with the woman, but insisted that the sex was consensual. Ziegler also says that he recorded the encounter but deleted it.
According to the affidavit, Ziegler tried to contact his alleged victim via Instagram, and she began communicating with Ziegler as part of the police investigation. In one exchange she wrote: “I’m not okay with what happened the other day between us.” “Oh. That’s not good. You are my friend. Known ya for like twenty years now. Lol,” Ziegler replied. “Yeah I know but that was not cool and you didn’t bring her [Bridget] and then did that to me,” the woman responded. “She was in. Then couldn’t because no response. She said in next time,” Ziegler explained.
Well that’s nice. At least the Zieglers have something to look forward to.
In one of the phone calls between the alleged victim and Ziegler that was taped, the woman told him “he sexually assault her” and Ziegler replied, “Those are big words, please don’t, no I didn’t. You invited me in, that’s it. I did not at all, and I never want you to feel that way.”
The missing threesome participant,Bridget Ziegler, 41, has been an elected Sarasota County school board member and co-founded the conservative parents’ rights organization Moms for Liberty. She has been a close ally of Gov. DeSantis in his efforts to remove sexually explicit materials and classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity from Florida schools, helping to author the Parents Bill of Rights in Florida. In 2023, DeSantis named Bridget to the board that oversees the Walt Disney Company’s special taxing district in Central Florida. Meanwhile, husband Christian has been on the front lines defending DeSantis against attacks from LGTBQ groups. In one interview, he declared Democrats who opposed DeSantis to be“perverted.”
Then he cut the interview short to get to a three-way.
(Kidding.)
Not surprisingly, DeSantis has asked Ziegler to resign his post. He refuses, arguing that the rape allegation is false, that the investigation will exonerate him, and that then all will be well. Wait…Kevin Bacon has a comment…
As with George Santos, Ziegler doesn’t need to be proven guilty of any crime, in his case rape, for his removal from his post to be appropriate. What has been revealed is enough: he and his wife are liabilities to their party and their state.
Ethics Alarms 
I am going to focus on the CNN story. Exactly how is it relevant to discuss the wife’s involvement with the parents’ rights group and her desire to have sexually explicit materials removed from school libraries. The article promotes the idea that that work is the outgrowth of homophobia and paints conservatives who might not rush to judgement in this case as hypocrites. I believe that virtually everyone that opposes the sexually explicit LGBT materials will also oppose stories that describe heterosexual sex acts by a man or by a woman. Furthermore, the idea that artists depictions of sex acts by an adult on a minor are not child porn but if it were an actual image of a child then the person in possession of it would be a serious crime. This is the hypocrisy, and I would feel the same way if the artist depictions were heterosexual in nature.
I consider myself a conservative and I don’t give a rat’s ass what other adults do in their bedrooms. I do care when these stories emerge to portray conservatives as puritanical prudes who think anything beyond the missionary position is a sin.
Yes, the guy should step down while he fights the charges. With that said does anyone believe that a follow-up story will be made by CNN if he is exonerated or found not guilty?
Don’t hold your breath. Can I say that this story has all the hallmarks of a smear campaign?
But like all celebrities, judges and official office holders, public perception is what matters for the Zieglers. To the average person, what they apparently like in the bedroom seems like hypocrisy. That’s enough to make their public advocacy of conservative values worthless, indeed, damaging.
Jack, I think I am fairly representative of conservatives. I will admit that the left has used the Christian Right to conflate the definition of a political conservative and that of a strident puritanical religious zealot.
One does not need to be a hard core Christian to be against abortion or support that which is embodied in Judeo-Christian values. To presume that most conservatives are hypocritical Bible thumpers is simply an effect of the propaganda war against anything conservative.
Who created the idea that conservatives are homophobic when in fact they just were concerned about the sacrament of marriage and now trying to promote gender dysphoria among the young. You did not see widespread antagonism when anti-sodomy laws were repealed.
Who pushes the idea that conservatives want the dystopian society reflected in the Handmaids Tale and any push back against a feminist agenda is misogynistic. The conservatives I associate with know that women are every bit as capable to advance their ideas as a man and do not need the males to give the deference out of some notion of chivalry.
Conservatives that I know want to conserve that which have proven track records of success relative to other options such as two parent families. We really don’t expect the mother to be a stay at home mom. We respect a women’s right to choose her path in life. We also acknowledge that all rights have commensurate responsibilities.
Conservatives with whom I associate support focus on personal responsibility and have strong work ethics. We believe in privacy in personal and financial matters. It does not matter to conservatives like me who you love, how you demonstrate that love (some things should remain out of public view) or how many partners consenting adults choose to have. We may disagree with all of it but we recognize that we don’t have a need to interfere unless the behavior involves those who cannot consent to the decisions of those adults. Only then will we speak up.
On Reddit’s Star Trek page, someone started a thread asking why conservatives watch “Star Trek” when it promotes everything they hate.
More than few members pointed out that conservativism is not a monolith. Requiring fandom to march in lockstep to political ideology is counterproductive and gatekeeping.
All true, but not really relevant to the post. Both Zieglers are leaders of organizations and policy intiatives. They have a duty to appear squeaky clean. A DUI doesn’t really demonstrate that a leader has less ability or that his positions aren’t valid, but these things are basic cognitive dissonance scale matters. The couple was reckless and irresponsible at the very least. They are both guilty of that, and that’s plenty to disqualify them for future leadership roles in conservative politics.
The wife is actually irrelevant. With respect to the charges lodged against Christian Ziegler.
Her relevance is interesting when her name is broadcast but the alleged victim remains unnamed. If everything here is true the alleged victim’s price for sex with her was Bridget. More to the point we are automatically assuming that the initial three way was Christian’s idea and the women were merely good girls that were unduly influenced by this misogynistic male.
Remember when they made fun of Mike pence when he said he would never have dinner without his wife. It takes very little to make an accusation.