(Nothing says "family values", for a GOP politician, like having a mistress.)

In 2019, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, who was running for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate (which was eventually won by Tommy Tuberville), tried to shore up his conservative credentials by declaring television a vast wasteland because everything was just gay gay gay.

I wrote earlier about why he’s just wrong about television in general, but his underlying point was that we’ve let sin thrive and we need to go back to traditional values.

Funny thing about those values…

Merrill was expected to run for Senate again in 2022, this time for the seat currently held by retiring Sen. Richard Shelby. But yesterday he announced he wouldn’t be running at all.

What prompted the change? The revelation that the conservative Christian had been having a years-long extra-marital affair with a woman who recorded a long conversation about their sex life… And has text messages that include his kink preferences.