Country Music star, Sara Evans, just
filed for divorce from her husband, conservative activist, and
Republican candidate for Congress in 2004, Craig Schelske.
Evans was a contestant, this season, on the popular show, "Dancing with the Stars." Simultaneous with her announcement that she's seeking a divorce, she also withdrew from the "Dancing with the Stars" competition.
The announcement was rather a terse one.
according to a statement issued by Allen Brown, her representative at Sony BMG Music Entertainment.
"Recent events that shed light on the status of her marriage prompted Ms. Evans to make the filing," Brown said in the statement. He declined to elaborate.
A very interesting intriguing comment. Hmmm.....more on that later.
Schelske runs Craigpac, a political action committee "dedicated to electing conservative leaders with a reform-driven agenda."
Here's a map of some of the candidates "Craigpac" has donated money to. Notable on that list were former Lt. Governor candidate in Georgia, Ralph Reed, and none other than everybody's favorite Chairman of the House Page Board, John Shimkus!
And here's a nice big fat $1000 donation to Craig's campaign committee from "Crazy" Curt Weldon.
Here's a 2004 profile of Sara and Craig for the 700 Club.
Craig says that he and Sara both believe that they are the recipients of other people's blessings. "We feel that someone prayed for us," he says. Sara's great grandmother Morrison and his great grandmother Tucker prayed generationally. They believe these blessings brought Sara to the national stage. Craig has known the Lord since he was 8. When he met Sara, he was going through a challenging time in his life, knowing he was not where he should be spiritually. He told the Lord that he couldn't handle this; two weeks later he met Sara. They spent time in the Scriptures together, and Sara rededicated her life to Christ at age 20.
How touching.
As you can see, they portrayed themselves as a happily married, moral and religiously conservative couple.
Sara and Craig's political leanings and connections are almost certainly what prompted disgraced former House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay to urge people to vote for Sara in the "Dancing with the Stars" competition.
So what were the "recent events that shed light on the status of [Sara Evans'] marriage?" Well...according to the Nashville Tennessean:
Sara Evans filed for divorce Thursday from her husband of 13 years, Craig Schelske, in Williamson County, alleging that he had committed adultery, verbally abused her and frequently watched pornography at home. . . .
According to the document filed in chancery court, Schelske allegedly has on his computer at least 100 photographs of himself posing with his erect penis. There are several photographs of him having sex with other women, the filings stated.
"On his computers, husband maintains `Craigs Lists.' Many of them involve requests for three party sex and anal sex. Husband's `Craigs Lists' are composed of personal ads on his personal sex engine involving him and prospective sex partners," the documents stated.
The court document included an exhibit of nine recent "Craigs Lists'' items stored in the temporary files of his computers.
Craigslist is an online ad service.
On Sept. 28, one of the children confronted Schelske, 43, at the couple's Franklin home when he was watching pornography on TV, the filing stated. The couple's children are 2, 3 and 7 years old.
Evans, 35, requested a temporary restraining order prohibiting Schelske from physically and verbally abusing her, exposing their three young children to pornographic materials of any kind, consuming alcoholic beverages to excess in front of Evans or the children, and taking their children to Oregon, which would interfere with her temporary and pending custody."
Yowza!
Another "family values" Republican caught, literally, with his pants down!
UPDATE: Here's what Sara had to say on how she keeps her marriage strong last year --
It's most important to keep marriage and family together. I am a child of divorce, and it's devastating. I have a 12-year marriage. And the way I see it, the way to an amazing marriage is having sex ... lots of sex. Sex keeps the marriage young. And a woman should maintain herself for her husband and stay attractive. I like to put the kids to bed, have a glass of wine on the patio or by the fireplace, and I ask Craig, 'What do you need of me?'"
Oh...boy. [adding] Let me just say that, I think this is a VERY unhealthy way to view a marriage. Sex is a great thing. But if you make sex that high of a priority to maintan your marriage, then you are destined for problems down the road. How about friendship, emtional support, and love?
Maybe Sara got the wrong message from the divorce of her parents? I don't know. But it does seem a tragic shame.
MAJOR UPDATE: Access Hollywood
posted pdf versions of the Evans divorce filings on their website. I now know why she included all of the lurid details in her court filing. She was seeking a Temporary Restraining Order against her husband to prevent him from "abusing" her and from exposing the kids to more pronographic material, etc. In order to get that, she had to provide evidence to back it up beyond merely her sworn affidavit.
ONE MORE UPDATE: Apparently, Craigpac organized a fundraiser for Adrian Smith, the GOP's Congressional candidate against Democratic netroot favorite Scott Kleeb in Nebraska.
Curiously, all the photos from the event have been SCRUBBED from Adrian's campaign website. All that's left is a Google cache of the page itself.
BUT,
Google DID cache all the images from the event!