San Diego, CA (special) -- It was interesting to view President Bill Clinton's televised address concerning his relationship with Monica Lewinsky in juxtaposition with the second debate between California gubernatorial candidates Gray Davis and Dan Lungren two nights later.

The President invoked both God and family in explaining his unwillingness to discuss the intimate details of what occurred between him and Lewinsky. In the Aug. 19 debate between Davis and Lungren, God and family were again summoned to the discourse--but, in this case, as allies for the making of public policy.

Clinton's infidelity to his wife absorbs the public interest for at least two reasons. One, it is far easier to understand than the intricacies of foreign or domestic policy. Two, as comparatively simple as it is, it can have dramatic consequences--not only for Clinton's presidency but on the national conscience. Perhaps even against our will, Clinton's debacle may force all of us to rethink the values with which we've grown comfortable.

We are witnessing an evolving public debate over sexual morality--one which may call into question some of the old truisms, or possibly reinforce them. 

I remember how my late mother, Alice Harrison Walters, reflexively would say, "I hope they're not Jewish" when she would hear about people involved in a crime or a scandal. She lived through the time of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg being convicted and executed for providing atomic secrets to the Russians and remembered how bigots tried to say every Jew was a Communist. 

I used to laugh at what I thought was my mother's unnecessary sense of insecurity. In this country, I told her, Jews are judged as individuals. True, some will make mistakes, or commit wrongdoing, but it won't affect our standing as a group. I still believe that. But I know my mother would have wished that Monica Lewinsky wasn't Jewish. And I do too.

We in the Jewish community would have been more comfortable if we could have dismissed all this sordid business as "their problem," not ours. But Lewinsky is one of ours. She grew up in a Jewish home that identified as such. I know that some people are attempting to place all the blame on the President for their relationship, given the disparity in their ages. However, anyone who read transcripts of Lewinsky's taped conversations with Linda Tripp knows better. They are both culpable. 

To the extent that American institutions and Jewish institutions both failed to give Monica Lewinsky proper moral grounding, we in the American Jewish community must be concerned on both fronts. We can start evaluating the lessons our society teaches us about morality by listening carefully to the political dialogue.

In that remarkable speech, Clinton said, "I must take complete responsibility for all my actions both public and private." When he gave a deposition in the Paula Jones case in January, his denials to questions about whether he had a sexual relationship with Lewinsky "were legally accurate (but) I did not volunteer information. Indeed I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong. It constituted a critical
lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible." 

After denying that he asked anyone to lie about what occurred, he continued: "I know that my public comments and my silence about this matter gave a false impression. I misled people including even my wife. I deeply regret that." 

Clinton admitted that he was motivated "by a desire to protect myself from the embarrassment of my own conduct" and that further "I was very concerned about protecting my family. ...Now this matter is between me, the two people I love most--my wife and our daughter--and our God. I must put it right. And I am prepared to whatever it takes to do so. 

"Nothing is more important to me personally, but it is private, and I intend to reclaim my family life for my family. It is nobody's business but ours. Even Presidents have private lives. It is time to stop the pursuit of personal destruction and the prying into private lives and get on with our national life."

The names of President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky never came up during the second debate between California Lt. Gov. Gray Davis and California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren. However, they were asked by a Fresno-area reporter what state action might be required to reverse soaring pregnancy rates in the San Joaquin Valley. 

Unlike Clinton, whose speech was carefully prepared, word by word, the two candidates' thoughts were expressed extemporaneously. They may have lacked the polish of Clinton's grammar, but in their own ways they tried to address the American conscience concerning our nation's sexual mores.

Lungren answered first, saying that sex education programs in schools, "with the approval of a parent" is one appropriate approach. He also said California should also accept a federal grant to teach teenagers the importance of sexual abstinence.

"Obviously," the attorney general added, "we have to talk to our children about the problems involved in the morality of the entire thing. And we also have to show them...the difficulty that a single mother who is a teenager faces in our society."

Davis, in turn, said he believes "we need to educate children as young as possible." He said he favors sex education programs to "educate boys and girls as to the cost of bringing a young life into this world, not just the cost of giving birth but the cost of braces and education that lead to a  child being raised and lead to their maturity."

The lieutenant governor also said he favors encouraging children at an early age "to look to their spiritual side--churches, synagogues, mosques--and to encourage the clergy to let people know the consequences of bringing a young life into the world."

When it came time for the candidates to "question" each other, Davis again turned to an issue relating to sexual conduct: abortion. Knowing that California voters have shown a decided preference in polls for the "pro choice" position, Davis said Lungren had "made clear that you do not trust women to control their bodies, even after they consult their own doctor, conscience and religion. You do not believe they should make a choice as to the potential of an abortion, you want to make it for them. I am pro-choice and you are not." 

In his "question," Davis hammered the point home, listing bills and proposed amendments supported by Lungren that not only would have outlawed most abortions generally, but even outlawed those prompted by rape and incest -- categories of abortions conceded by many in the "pro life" movement to be morally different than those done simply for a mother's convenience.

Like Davis, Lungren is a Catholic. Their religion teaches that abortion is a sin.

"Some people believe that it is a great victory in America and a great thing that we ought to all rejoice in the number of abortions that take place," Lungren replied to Davis' question.

"I think it is a tragedy. I think every abortion is a tragedy," Lungren said, adding that the bills in question were intended to foster a debate, and did not mean he was against making an exception for rape and incest victims.

The discussion about abortion led to the candidates accusing each other about misleading the public about other issues such as the death penalty. Lungren, perhaps without meaning to, made a sexual and biblical allusion when he accused Davis of not really supporting the death penalty, but instead casting only a "fig leaf" vote to give the appearance of favoring the death penalty.

Davis denied he was masquerading as a death penalty proponent.

Lungren, of course, doesn't oppose wearing a fig leaf (or other items of clothing) to cover ones genitals; he meant that he opposed disguising one's true political self. But given the overall circumstances, it was an ironic metaphor.