WALSH: A Mississippi Politician Refuses To Be Alone With Women Who Aren’t His Wife. Here Is Why That’s Smart.

Robert Foster, a gubernatorial candidate in Mississippi, has faced some backlash in recent days after he refused a one-on-one meeting with a female reporter. Foster says he and his wife have long agreed to a system — sometimes known as the “Billy Graham rule,” or more recently as the “Mike Pence rule” — whereby neither of them will be alone with a member of the opposite sex. This sensible precaution has, of course, been met with outrage — first and foremost from the female reporter who claims that Foster’s respect for his wife makes her, the reporter, feel like a “sexual object.”

There is a lot of upside — and, as far as I can tell, no discernible downside — to a policy like the one the Fosters have adopted. It does, in part, guard the integrity of their marriage by guarding the hearts of both spouses. Most adults understand that extramarital trysts usually begin with seemingly innocent interactions. An emotional threshold is crossed at some point, often unnoticed by one or both people, and things can go rapidly downhill from there. The point behind avoiding one-on-one meetings with members of the opposite sex is to avoid getting anywhere near that threshold. Better safe than sorry, after all.