Insider Trading and the Battle of the Sexes

There are two types of insider trading, both illegal, but only one is (or can be) punished. If you get inside information and trade on it, you've committed a crime (whether or not that should be a crime is a topic for another day). If you get inside information and refrain from making a trade that you would have made absent the information, you've also technically committed a crime. But no one can see that crime. Two crimes, very different outcomes. Only the crime of Commission gets punished. The crime of Omission is ignored.

This applies equally to the battle of the sexes. Men notoriously commit lots of sexual sins of commission - philandering, pornography, prostitution, you name it. By contrast, their wives very seldom commit these sins. Instead they commit sexual sins of omission: attraction, deception, indifference, rejection.

Both categories are sins, but only one gets highlighted. And then we have the example of John Edwards finally admitting the paternity of his daughter by a campaign aide. Frequent readers of this blog know that I hold no brief for Mr. Edwards or his many sins, however, it is reasonable to point out that we don't know the character and nature of Sen. Edwards' relationship with his wife and what her role was in the collapse of their marriage.

It's a tough dilemma for Pastors because the core of almost all Churches are its matrons. And they are not mocked.