It happened suddenly, unexpectedly this past Friday at the end of the work week: John Tory, the Progressive Conservative mayor of Toronto, Canada’s biggest city, resigned. It was an ugly end for the relatively popular career Ontario politician.
Tory loved his job as mayor, and a lot of people thought he was good at it. Though he was getting close to 70, he gave the impression that he could have done it “forever.” His work ethic was legendary due to the long hours he kept on the job. And the public also bought Tory’s political branding of a family man with a solid background and a 40-year-marriage. Tory’s popularity among Torontonians was high enough that he didn’t seem to have to be worried much about any serious political challengers—until the Leftist newspaper, The Toronto Star, published a story alleging that Tory had a zipper problem. As it is written: “You may be sure that your sin will find you out!” (Numbers 32:23).
It seems John Tory had become involved in a consensual adulterous affair with a 31-year-old staffer who had been working in his office during the Covid lockdown craziness in Toronto. Rather than lie about it like former U.S. President Bill Clinton, Tory simply owned up to it and then resigned, surprising everyone.
In a society where almost anything goes in regards to a person’s sexual behaviour, to resign because of an adulterous affair seems terribly old-fashioned to those with a “progressive” orientation. There were more than a few politicians and media commentators who considered Tory’s indiscretion to be politically survivable. But for whatever reason, John Tory did not. So a distinguished career in public service ended suddenly and ignominiously. The Bible would assert that when one sins, dishonour follows as surely as night follows day.
Our present society doesn’t like to acknowledge the reality of sin and its consequences. That is to say, the Woke don’t believe that there really is a Creator God who established spiritual laws about correct sexual behaviour along with appropriate consequences for disobeying that divine morality. After all, most “progressive” politicians and their Woke supporters assume that the Bible’s God and His teachings on sex are just so much nonsense and ancient mythology.
Well, I suppose one could ask John Tory whether he now thinks that it would have been better for him if he had obeyed the 7th of the 10 Commandments? (see Deuteronomy 5) Or whether his life would have been much less painful for him right now if he had just paid more attention to Ecclesiastes 10:1: Dead flies make the perfumer’s ointment give off a stench; so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honour.
