I mostly heard it with the Clinton/Monica scandal and impeachment. Haven’t heard it so much since.
The term may still be in use in contracts relating to businesses that sell franchises. These businesses may have public images they want to keep family-friendly.
For example, you can’t buy a KFC franchise and do funny stuff with chickens (lest it become public).
Someone who’s morals are stuck in a jar of blue, thick, Venezuelan petroleum.
Well, the forms haven’t changed that much. Crimes involving “moral turpitude” are still very much a thing under US immigration law. Which is what I think of when I hear “moral turpitude.” That and, “Why do we try so hard to make so many lives so misrerable?”
ISTM that the very phrase “moral turpitude” calls the speaker out as blue-nosed asshat we ought to deport into space. Without a suit.
A Bloom County strip from the 80s. I believe in reference to a Blondie album.
I am deeply embarrassed to agree with this. I saw it when I was fairly young and had never heard the phase before, so the association became lodged in my brain.
Curse you, brain!! Speaking of which why did a chance hearing of Gangnam Style outside of a pizza joint lodge that fucking ear-worm in my head for the past two days? Fucking brain!
In The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury (highly recommended) the main protagonist Howard Kirk is threatened with dismissal from the university for “gross moral turpitude”, which he considers a medieval concept involving overfamiliarity with nuns and a “very vague concept, especially these days”.
And so it is (a very vague concept). In fact, for a fleeting moment, US courts seemed poised to rule such provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (those making so-called crimes of “moral turpitude” variously grounds of inadmissibility, grounds for deportation, or bars to citizenship eligibility) unconstitutional for vagueness. But alas, it was not to be.
I laughed!
You called?
Re the OP: what comes to mind, I guess, is someone who does bad things and doesn’t care – no sense of guilt / regret / conscience whatever.
This is the correct answer
Politicians
Donald Trump
I always think of Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading, but that was “gnostical turpitude”, not moral turpitude. It’s still what comes to mind.
A Cheap Date.
I think of turnips and morel mushrooms. Could be the makings of a fine soup.
Generally sold at a broth-el.
Bill Clinton and his activities under the desk in the Oval Office back in the '90s.
Thanks, everyone.
As some of you may have guessed, it has come up in my US visa application. If something is a Crime Involving Moral Turpitude (CIMT), it can have a detrimental impact on your visa. There is no direct correlation between the one blot on my criminal record and US law, so they need to determine what ‘Mischief to Private Property’ translates to, and if it involves ‘moral turpitude’. So far, it has only cost me some extra time and paperwork, along with the uncertainty.
Amusingly, the extra paperwork included employment history, so I took the opportunity to underscore the fact that I worked in the office of a United Church of Canada congregation, serving under a total of 8 ordained ministers plus a director of music with an Order of Canada and an honorary doctorate for her contributions to choral music. Then there’s my involvement with the vulnerable sector (including seniors, children, and homeless people), and the fact that I have served as a lay minister for at least two services.
It felt like I was saying “I’ll see your ‘moral turpitude’, and I’ll raise you ‘lay minister’.”…