The Richard Barker Rule

 
    I quote from a passage in the book “When Harry Became Sally” which I appreciated and for which I had my own personal example.
    “A couple of recent news items illustrate how our culture has lost clarity on the realities of sex differences.  In March 2017, Karen Pence, the wife of the vice president, set off a minor scandal by telling the Washington Post that her husband had a policy of not eating dinner alone with other women or drinking alcohol as public events when his wife wasn’t with him.  Mike Pence was denounced in the media as a misogynist whose social practice rested on a stereotype of women as seducers.  His critics claimed that it resulted in holding back female employees in their career, depriving them of mentorship and opportunities, since all the important business of the nation’s capital (they said) happens over diner and drinks.  Thus, Pence was discriminating against women.  The prominent liberal website Vox ran an article titled “Vice-President Pence’s ‘never dine alone with a women’ rule isn’t honorable.  It’s probably illegal.”  The article was written by a law professor who teaches employment law.
    “Mike Pence follows a version of what is known as the Billy Graham Rule, after the evangelist’s practice of avoiding situations that might carry temptation or invite suspicion.  Regardless of whether any of us would adopt the rule, it is entirely reasonable, defensible, and admirable.  Pence, like Graham, takes the differences between the sexes seriously, and he strives to protect the goods that those differences make possible—marriage and family life—while avoiding the traps they can create.  Pence himself first mentioned this policy to a reporter in 2002, when he was a young congressman representing an Indiana district in Washington, D,C.  Sexual scandal had recently been swirling around many powerful men in politics, from President Bill Clinton and Senator Ted Kennedy to Speaker Newt Gingrich.  This failing was clearly bipartisan.  So it’s understandable why some men would follow the Graham Rule, and why some women would want their husbands to do so.  Such a rule can help protect husbands from infidelity by creating a barrier to romance and temptation; it can give wives peace of mind; it can guard reputations from media speculation and scandalmongering; and it lets female employees know their boss is committed to keeping relationships professional and avoiding any confusion about it.  This is one way for a culture to recognize and respect sex differences.
    “After the Post’s profile of Mike Pence had sparked a ritual denunciation of the vice president, a former staffer of his, Mary Vought, wrote a defense of him that ran on the Post’s website.  In response to the charge that he discriminated against women, she wrote: “Pence’s personal decision not to dine alone with female staffers was never a hindrance to my ability to do my job well, and never kept me from reaping the rewards of my work.  In fact, I excelled at my job because of the work environment created from the top down.”  After all, one can value the expertise and insights of female staffers without sharing dinner and drinks.  And there are many ways to advance in our career that don’t involve one-on-one dinners with the boss.  (Apparently, Pence has not made a practice of one-on-one dinners with male staffers either.)  Vought explained that Pence’s personal rule on dining and drinking was just one small part of a larger policy of taking marriage and family seriously.  For example, he would hurry home after his official duties to share dinner with his wife and children whenever he could.  In various ways, “he modeled for male and female staffers alike that it was possible to serve in a public role with excellence while being wholly dedicated to his family.”  Pence should be commended, said Vought, for his commitment to “work-life balance, the importance of family time, and respect in the workplace: values we can all get behind.”” (Ryan T. Anderson, “When Harry Became Sally”, pp. 146-147)
    I recall some similar instructions I received when I was a young Elders Quorum President in Taylorsville, that I want to call the Richard Barker Rule.  He was our Stake President and gave this instruction at a Stake Priesthood Leadership meeting.  He was working in downtown Salt Lake City in the executive office of one of Utah’s banking firms.  A women who lived nearby in Taylorsville was hired to work in that same office.  That previous week, as he was getting ready to leave for work one morning, the women called him on the telephone and asked a favor.  Her car wouldn’t start.  Could she get a ride into work with him.  He responded that he could not offer her a ride, but he would be happy to pay for a taxi.  He explained that it would be inappropriate for him to be seen alone in a car with a women other than his wife.
    His personal rule, which he also recommended to each of us, as husbands and priesthood holders and leaders, was as follows: To avoid temptation and also the appearance of evil, a married man should never be alone with a women other than his wife.