Freedom Caucus Republican Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina sure does love families. In fact, he’s made a great show of how much he fights to protect families.
But being a Freedom Caucus Republican also means being a raging hypocrite: He’s allegedly been cheating on his wife all along.
Just last month, Duncan hosted his 12th annual Faith and Freedom BBQ. “The event is described as South Carolina’s largest annual conservative gathering, welcoming guests from around the state and southeast United States,” reported local news outlet WSPA 7 News. “The event will feature speakers including Senator Tim Scott and Casey DeSantis.” The State newspaper wrote about how the event has grown from 400 to 2,000 attendees, and has become a “GOP must attend.”
The Faith and Freedom Coalition is Ralph Reed’s current gig. You might remember him as one of the key figures in the rise of the Christian Coalition, serving as its executive director between 1989 and 1997 alongside Pat Robertson. Then he left the organization amidst collapsing finances and IRS and FEC investigations, leading to a minor slap on the wrist by a federal court. He was also implicated in the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal. WWJD? Money laundering and corruption, apparently. Still, he was never charged in the affair.
In any case, the Faith and Freedom Coalition says, “We believe that the greatness of America lies not in the federal government but in the character of our people — the simple virtues of faith, hard work, marriage, family, personal responsibility, and helping the least among us. If we lose sight of these values, America will cease to be great.”
Ah yes, marriage.
He’s so proud of his commitment to “defend the family.” On his website, on a page headlined with a picture of a Bible, he claimed, “As a life-long social conservative, I am a strong advocate for life and traditional family values.”
If the allegations of infidelity are true, this is yet another example of a Republican failing to live up to this performative crap.
In a divorce filing, his wife, Melody Duncan, unloads on her husband. “When Jeff Duncan left his ‘Faith and Freedom BBQ’ at the end of August, after calling Melody Duncan his loving and supportive wife, he then went ‘directly to the home of his paramour,’” reports the Index-Journal, a Greenwood, South Carolina, newspaper. ”Melody Duncan, wife of U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-SC 3rd District, filed for divorce Friday at the Laurens County Courthouse. In the filing, she accuses the 13-year conservative representative of having multiple extramarital affairs, and leaving their marital home to live with a woman he’s having an ongoing sexual relationship with.”
She claims that this isn’t a he-said, she-said situation, that Jeff Duncan has admitted to the affairs to “the parties’ sons and members of his staff,” and that he has built a narrative of a loveless marriage “to justify the hypocrisy of his public statements and his private actions.”
If only there were a remedy for a failed marriage that didn’t involve unfaithfulness …
For his part, Jeff Duncan hasn’t responded to the allegations.
