14 notorious Republican sex scandals

A Brief History of Conservative Sex Scandals

The recent news about gay sex in federal office buildings has some conservatives crowing about liberal immorality. There was the firing of the legislative aide to Democratic U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, for having sex with another man in a Senate hearing room. Then it emerged that a second congressional staffer was investigated for allegedly filming himself performing sex acts with a man in a U.S. House office building.

That staffer hasn't been named, but it's been reported that he worked for a Republican representative. So let us not forget that many conservatives have been embroiled in sex scandals. Some have been with members of the same sex, some the opposite. Some have involved consensual sex, others assault or harassment, and most are evidence of either hypocrisy or deep denial. Some have led to downfalls, while the consequences of others remain to be seen. Herewith, a look at 14 of the most prominent cases.

Related: These 27 Senate Hearing Room Gay Sex Jokes Are Truly Exquisite

From left: Jerry Falwell Jr., Donald Trump, and Lauren Boebert

Matt Schlapp

Matt Schlapp, head of the virulently anti-LGBTQ+ American Conservative Union and major ally of Donald Trump, has been sued by a man who accuses Schlapp of sexual assault. Carlton Huffman, who worked on Republican U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s failed campaign in Georgia in 2022, claims Schlapp groped his genitals, without his consent, while Huffman was driving him around Georgia. Huffman is also accusing Schlapp and his wife, former Trump adviser Mercedes Schlapp, of defamation. His lawsuit was recently amended to include assault allegations by two other men, whose names have not been made public, in incidents they say took place before the 2022 occurrence. The Schlapps deny any wrongdoing, and their allies contend Huffman is trying to divert attention from his own extremist record and the fact that he’s been accused of sexual assault himself. The lawsuit, filed in Alexandria, Va., is set to go to trial in June.

Lauren Boebert

“Family values” Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who has claimed drag queens and LGBTQ+ activists are “sexualizing” children, was caught fondling and being fondled by her date at the family-friendly musical Beetlejuice at a Denver theater in September. She was also vaping and otherwise being disruptive, and she and her companion, bar owner Quinn Gallagher, were forced to leave the theater. She’s admitted to “falling short” of her values and blamed her behavior on the stress of her divorce. Will the incident affect her reelection chances? She barely beat Democrat Adam Fritsch in 2022, and he’s running against her again in 2024.

Christian and Bridget Ziegler

One of the latest scandals involves Christian Ziegler, chairman of the Florida Republican Party, and his wife, Bridget Ziegler, a cofounder of the anti-LGBTQ+ group Moms for Liberty. A woman with whom they once had a consensual sexual relationship has now accused Christian Ziegler of rape. He has not been charged with a crime, and he has said he did not rape the woman but instead had consensual sex with her, in the absence of his wife on that occasion. Even if he did not commit rape, the three-way affair by people who publicly condemn anything but monogamous heterosexual relationships is stunningly hypocritical, as some LGBTQ+ activists have observed. The Florida Republican Party has censured Christian Ziegler, stripping him of authority although he retains his title as chairman.

Donald Trump

The biggest of them all. Donald Trump has been accused of sexual assault by more than a dozen women and has even bragged about grabbing women by the genitals. E. Jean Carroll, a New York-based writer, accused Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s. He called her allegations “totally false,” claimed he’d never met her, and said she wasn’t his “type.” Carroll sued, and in May a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse (not rape) and defaming Carroll by saying she was lying. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages; Trump is appealing. In a second civil case, a judge has found that Trump defamed Carroll, and a trial set for January will determine only the amount of damages he owes.

Jerry Falwell Jr.

Jerry Falwell Jr., who continued his late father’s legacy of fundamentalist Christian activism against LGBTQ+ people, was forced to resign as president of Liberty University, which Jerry Falwell Sr. founded, in the wake of a sex scandal. In early August 2020, the university placed Falwell Jr. on leave after he posted a picture on social media of himself and a woman who works as his wife's assistant, both with their pants unzipped, and Giancarlo Granda, a former pool attendant who had a business deal with Falwell, said he had had an affair with Falwell's wife, Becki, and that the evangelical leader would watch them have sex. Later in the month, Falwell resigned with a $10.5 million severance package. He has since sued Liberty for defamation, for retirement benefits he claims he’s owed, and for using his father’s name and image.

Larry Craig

In 2007, Larry Craig, then a Republican U.S. senator from Idaho, was charged with disorderly conduct, allegedly having solicited sex from an undercover police officer in a restroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. He pleaded guilty, then tried unsuccessfully to withdraw the plea. He said he had touched the officer only accidentally — his “wide stance” in the restroom stall caused his foot to tap the policeman’s. Other men have alleged Craig sought sexual relationships with them, but he has insisted he’s not gay. He didn’t run for reelection in 2008, and he went back to Idaho and opened a consulting firm.

George Rekers

George Rekers was once a prominent anti-LGBTQ+ activist and proponent of conversion therapy. He was also a cofounder of the Family Research Council and frequently testified in court against the parental rights of LGBTQ+ people. But he fell from grace in 2010 after some gay journalists found out he’d hired a male sex worker to go with him on a European vacation. He claimed he hired the man to carry his luggage and didn’t know the man’s line of work until halfway through the trip. Further, he claimed to be emulating Jesus by hanging out with sinners.

Ted Haggard

Ted Haggard was fired as pastor of New Life Church, a huge congregation in Colorado Springs, in 2006, after a man who’d once been a sex worker claimed he’d had a relationship with Haggard for three years. Haggard admitted to “sexual immorality” and later insisted he’s straight, but “with issues.” He founded another church, St. James Church, in Colorado Springs in 2010. In 2022, men who’d attended St. James accused him of touching them inappropriately. He's still listed on the church’s website as founding pastor.

Mark Foley

Mark Foley, a Republican congressman from Florida, resigned in 2006 after it was revealed he’d sent sexually explicit emails and instant messages to young men who’d been congressional pages. He came out as gay, said he was an alcoholic and entered rehab, and also said he’d been sexually abused by a priest when he was a youth. He was not charged with any crime — there was no evidence he’d had sex with minors or sent them sexual images — but his career in elected office was over. However, he’s still a power among Republicans in Florida, donating to candidates and the Palm Beach County Republican Party, according to Business Insider, even as GOPers condemn other LGBTQ+ people as “groomers.” In 2019, the county group gave him a service award, and no less than Roger Stone called him a “great American patriot.”

Dan Crane

Dan Crane was an ultraconservative Republican congressman from Illinois in 1983 when it emerged that he’d had sex with a 17-year-old female page three years earlier. He was censured by the U.S. House, as was Democrat Gerry Studds of Massachusetts, who’d had sexual relations with a 17-year-old male page in 1973. Both men admitted to the liaisons. Crane lost his reelection race in 1984 and returned to his dental practice in Illinois, while Studds was reelected several times. Both are now dead. One of Crane’s brothers, Phil, was also a notably far-right Republican congressman but avoided scandal.

Jon Hinson

Showing that sex in a federal office building is nothing new, Republican Congressman Jon Hinson of Mississippi resigned in 1981 after being arrested in a men’s restroom in a Capitol Hill building on a charge of oral sodomy with a man who worked for the Library of Congress. Hinson, who later said he was deeply closeted and in denial at the time, had been arrested once before, in 1976, on a charge of committing an obscene act. He also survived a 1977 fire at Cinema Follies, a theater in Washington, D.C., that catered to gay men; nine people were killed, and only four survived. Hinson eventually accepted his homosexuality and became an activist, campaigning against the ban on gays and lesbians in the military and helping to found the Fairfax Lesbian and Gay Citizens Association in Fairfax County, Va. He died in 1995.

Jim Bakker

Jim Bakker was one of America’s most prominent and prosperous televangelists, with a TV show, a Christian theme park, and a life of luxury, when it was reported in 1987 that he’d paid hush money to Jessica Hahn, a church secretary with whom he’d had sexual relations a few years earlier. He said the sex was consensual; she said it wasn’t. It was also alleged that he’d had same-sex liaisons. What really brought the Bakker empire down, though, was that he was convicted of several financial crimes, for which he served five years in prison. He and his wife, Tammy Faye, who was beloved by LGBTQ+ people for her accepting ways, divorced and married others; she was not implicated in any of his misdeeds. She died in 2007, but Jim Bakker is alive and has rebuilt his televangelism career. He was sued in 2020 over hawking a fake COVID remedy (the suit has been settled), and in 2022, he claimed ministers were being killed in their pulpits for supporting anti-LGBTQ+ laws.

Wes Goodman

Again, sex in government offices is nothing new: Wes Goodman, an Ohio state representative and self-described Christian conservative, resigned from the legislature in 2017 after being caught in “inappropriate behavior” of a romantic or sexual nature with a man in his office. Goodman, who’d previously been an aide to far-right Congressman Jim Jordan, issued a public apology. He went on to work as a consultant and then managed a Brooks Brothers store, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Roy Moore

Roy Moore was well known as a raging homophobe when he was chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. He said marriage equality will destroy the nation, that homosexual "activity" should be illegal, and that transgender people have no rights. He even claimed his state didn't have to obey the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 ruling that established marriage equality nationwide. In 2017, it emerged that in addition to being a raging homophobe, he might also be a raging pedophile. He was the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in a special election to replace Sen. Jeff Sessions, who'd become Donald Trump's attorney general (something that ended badly). During the campaign, Moore was accused of having sexually abused several underage girls about 40 years earlier. This included accusations of molesting a 14-year-old and sexually assaulting a 16-year-old. He denied all the allegations, but they likely cost him votes, and Democrat Doug Jones won the election. Jones served only two years, as he had to run again in 2020 and lost to Republican Tommy Tuberville. Moore had tried to be the Republican nominee again, but this time the party faithful wanted no part of him; he received only 7 percent of the vote in the primary. By the way, Moore and one of his accusers, Leigh Corfman, sued each other for defamtion, but neither won. Moore did, however, win a defamation suit against a Democratic super PAC in 2022.